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

‘The Proctors?’ Erled answered lightly. ‘They will be no trouble at all, you can depend on it. Why, Ergrad, the Proctor Enforcer, is the father of Fanaleen, my betrothed. This is practically a family affair!’

Erfax merely smiled uncertainly, waved farewell and disappeared through the gates of his Museum in the wake of the whining, elephantine vibro-drill. Erled went on down the low passage whose ceiling, as everywhere in the Cavity, was barely six or eight inches overhead. He was not discomforted by this pressing closeness; it was the condition of life he had always known, that everyone had always known.

Centuries ago, had Erled raised his eyes and looked about him, he would have seen a vast cavern several miles in extent with a roof that curved perhaps a mile overhead: such was the Cavity as it had first been hollowed out, the total emptiness capacity of the known solid universe all in one piece. In the intervening centuries humanity had increased in numbers and had learned to use the space available to it with greater efficiency, compartmentalising all of it into closely calculated living and working spaces. In its present honeycombed form the Cavity petered out indeterminately into the surrounding rock like an amoeba trapped in a solid matrix. Its diameter was roughly fifteen miles and its population was three-quarters of a million. Incessantly computations were carried out to see whether, by an appropriate readjustment of existing arrangements, more living space could be gained from the inert plenum.

One thing was certain: no new emptiness could be created. That was a scientifically established law of conservation. Emptiness could be rearranged in any number of ways, or it could be moved from place to place by the substitution of solid matter, but its total volume could not be increased. Like solidity itself, that remained unchanging throughout time.

Which meant that humanity could never expand beyond the space that was already available to it; that its numbers could never increase beyond a certain tolerable density.

Unless.

Unless, as Erled had told himself a thousand times, new worlds, new Cavities, could be discovered in the infinite solidity.

After walking half a mile Inwards Erled took the public conveyor system which carried him speedily towards its destination: the workshop on the other side of the Cavity where he and his colleagues were preparing for the most exciting enterprise for many, many generations.

Erled’s confrontation with the Proctors came only a few work-cycles later.

It was not what he had expected.

He was summoned abruptly from his home during the relaxation period. On arriving at the Chamber of Proctors he was ushered directly in, and almost before he had time to compose himself he found himself faced with the interrogating stares of the men and women who ruled his life.

There was Erfloured, Ergurur and Erkarn, all representing different vital departments of life – Sustenance, Machine Technology, and Emptiness Utilisation. To their left, wearing ceremonial robe and sash, sat Erpiort, Proctor of Worship, and beside him the man who made Erled feel most nervous because he already knew him slightly: Ergrad, Proctor Enforcer, wearing the wide shoulder-sleeves and dark cowl of Law Enforcement.

Sitting to the left of Ergrad were the only two women on the Council: Fasusun, Proctress of Domestic Harmony, and Fatelka, Proctress of Child Care. Both were in the full bloom of an officious middle-age, and were looking at Erled with particular suspicion.

‘Be seated, Erled,’ said Erkarn, the man from whom, as Proctor of Emptiness Utilisation, Erled was expecting the most enthusiastic support. However, he was surprised to observe that the Proctor was apparently extremely annoyed with him.

‘Over the past few days we have discussed your quite interesting proposal very seriously,’ the Proctor announced, ‘but before we deal with that, it has come to our notice that recently you and Keeper of the Machine Museum Erfax, without permission and entirely in defiance of the law, operated a tunnelling machine Outward of the perimeter.’

‘But no excavations were carried out, Proctor!’ protested Erled, bewildered. ‘It was a demonstration run only. The run Outwards was only a few feet and it was made good immediately. I cannot see that we transgressed the law in doing that.’

‘You will allow us to decide when the law is transgressed,’ put in Ergrad darkly. He leaned towards Erled and suddenly looked menacing and sinister. ‘The law against uncontrolled excavations is a very strict one – as it must be, if emptiness is not to be eroded. Only state-commissioned vessels are allowed to operate in the solidity, as well you know, and the degree of the transgression is not the point in question.’

Erled looked crestfallen.

‘However,’ resumed Erkarn, ‘we shall leave that aside for the time being. While ignorance is no excuse it is possible that we may, in this instance, exercise our own discretion. Let us move to the main burden of the meeting: the proposal that long-range expeditions should be sent into solidity. While we have your full argument in the written tender, it would be better, for the sake of procedure, that you give us a brief account of it now so that it may appear on the transcript of this meeting.’

‘Very well, Proctor.’ Erled licked his lips. There was a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. The Proctors had done everything they could to put him at a disadvantage and that could only mean that they were opposed to the project.

‘Essentially our effort is designed to be a continuation of the exploratory sagas of ancient time,’ he began. ‘As you are aware the difficulty with the ancients’ method, apart from its slowness, is that it requires a permanent tunnel. Eventually all available emptiness is drawn into this tunnel, necessitating that the entire population should migrate along it and take part in the exploratory drive.

‘An alternative, much preferable method is for the drilling vessel to fill up the tunnel behind it as it proceeds, thus becoming a genuine vehicle isolated in solidity – thus leaving the Cavity intact. In the old days this was impracticable since there was no way of solving the supply problem. No vessel could possibly carry enough sustenance to support its crew during time periods which might extend to years or generations. But today the situation is different!’ Erled’s voice rose as his obsession gripped him once again. We are no longer limited to the vibro-drill. The modern tunneller works by disassociating solid matter into a perfectly fluid dust which, as the solidity-ship moved forward, it passes to its rear through special vents and simultaneously reconstitutes into the original rock. With this type of system almost incredible speeds can be achived – close on forty miles per hour. Furthermore, by now it has proved its reliability, having been employed for over a generation in the vessels that are used to survey the close rock environs of the Cavity. The time is long overdue when we should rediscover the passion of the ancients for the discovery of new worlds!’

The vibrant voice of the Proctor of Worship answered his declamation. ‘The ancients were endowed with intense religious zeal and embarked on their migrations in search of God, not of new worlds,’ Erpiort said critically. ‘Dauntless and resourceful though they were, it is also true that the ancients were at the primitivist stage of religious knowledge. To our more sophisticated intellects it is obvious that God is not to be found by travelling through the horizontal universe, no matter to what distance. Why should we repeat their follies?’

Erled knew exactly what Erpiort was driving at. It had been recognised for a long time that the universe was stratified. In any transverse direction the rock remained, as far as was known, unchanged to infinity. Downwards, one entered a Region of Intense Heat, while if one attempted to travel Upwards one encountered a Region of Impassibility. Above this region, which could be entered only by the souls of the righteous after death, God was acknowledged to dwell. Conversely the profound Region of Heat was a place of torment reserved for the souls of the wicked. Both regions were held to be infinite in themselves, but to Erled, or indeed to anyone else in the room, the very idea of travel either Up or Down for more than a few hundred miles was virtually a metaphysical notion. These transcendental directions were literally beyond possible human experience. Only horizontal directions had any practical meaning, and it was these that one normally meant by infinity.