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

But let me make it clear that for all this, the invader’s rule did not operate easily. It jarred, oscillated, went out of phase, and eventually, without Sorn, ended in disaster. It was only in this other, peculiar way, that it harmonised so pleasingly.

It was like this: when the King and his men tried to behave functionally and get things done, it was terrible. It didn’t fit. But when they simply added themselves to All Britain, and lay quiescently like touches of colour, it had the effect I describe.

I had always thought Sorn responsible for this. But could Sorn mould the King also? For I detected in the King that same English passivity and acceptance; not just his own enigmatic detachment, but something apart from that, something acquired. Yet how could he be something which he didn’t understand?

Sorn is dead, I thought, Sorn is dead.

Already, across one side of the square, were erected huge, precise stone symbols HOLATH HOLAN SORN DIED 5.8.2034. They were like a mathematical formula. Much of the King’s speech, when I thought of it, had the same quality.

Sorn was dead, and the weight of his power which had steadied the nation would be abruptly removed. He had been the operator, bridging the gap between alien minds. Without him, the King was incompetent.

A dazzling blue and gold air freighter appeared over the square and slanted down towards the palace. Everyone stopped to look, for it was one of the extraterrestrial machines, rarely seen since the invasion. No doubt it carried reinforcements for the palace defences.

Next morning I motored to Surrey to visit the first of the ten factories the King had mentioned.

The managers were waiting for me. I was led to a prepared suite of offices where I listened sleepily to a lecture on the layout and scope of the factory. I wasn’t very interested; one of the King’s kinsmen (referred to as the King’s men) would arrive shortly with full details of the proposed conversion, and the managers would have to go through it all again. I was only here as a representative, so to speak. The real job would be carried out by the alien.

We all wandered round the works for a few hours before I got thoroughly bored and returned to my office. A visitor was waiting.

Hotch.

‘What do you want now?’ I asked. ‘I thought I’d got rid of you.’

He grinned. ‘I found out what’s going on.’ He waved his arms to indicate the factory.

‘What of it?’

‘Well, wouldn’t you say the King’s policy is… ill-advised?’

‘You know as well as I do that the King’s policy is certain to be laughably clumsy.’ I motioned him to a seat. ‘What exactly do you mean? I’m afraid I don’t know the purpose of this myself.’

I was apologetic about the last statement, and Hotch laughed. ‘It’s easy enough to guess. Don’t you know what they’re building in Glasgow? Ships – warships of the King’s personal design.’

‘Brazil,’ I murmured.

‘Sure. The King chooses this delicate moment to launch a transatlantic war. Old Rex is such a blockhead he almost votes himself out of power.’

‘How?’

‘Why, he gives us the weapons to fight him with. He’s organising an armed native force which I will turn against him.’

‘You jump ahead of yourself. To go by the plans I have, no extraterrestrial weapons will be used.’

Hotch looked more sober. ‘That’s where you come in. We can’t risk another contest with the King’s men using ordinary arms. It would kill millions and devastate the country. Because it won’t be the skirmish-and-capitulate of last time. This time we’ll be in earnest. So I want you to soften things up for us. Persuade the King to hand over more than he intends: help us to chuck him out easily. Give us new weapons and you’ll save a lot of carnage.’

I saw his stratagem at once. ‘Quit that! Don’t try to lay blood responsibility on my shoulders. That’s a dirty trick.’

‘For a dirty man – and that’s what you are, Smith, if you continue to stand by, too apathetic even to think about it. Anyhow, the responsibility’s already laid, whatever you say. It depends on you.’

‘No.’

‘You won’t help?’

‘That’s right.’

Hotch sighed, and stared at the carpet for some seconds. Then he stared through the glass panels and down on to the floor of the workshops. ‘Then what will you do? Betray me?’

‘No.’

Sighing again, he told me: ‘One day, Smith, you’ll fade away through sheer lack of interest.’

‘I’m interested,’ I said. ‘I just don’t seem to have the kind of mind that can make a decision. I can’t find any place to lay blame, or anyone to turn against.’

‘Not even for Britain,’ he commented sadly. ‘Your Britain as well as mine. That’s all I’m working for, Smith, our country.’

His brashness momentarily dormant, he was moodily meditative. ‘Smith, I’ll admit I don’t understand what it’s all about. What does the King want? What has he gained by coming down here?’

‘Nothing. He descended on us and took on a load of troubles without profit. It’s a mystery. Hence my uncertainty.’ I averted my eyes. ‘During the time I have been in contact with the King he has impressed me as being utterly, almost transcendentally unselfish. So unselfish, so abstracted, that he’s like a – just a blank!’

‘That’s only how you see it. Maybe you read it into him. The psychos say he’s no emotion, and selfishness is a kind of emotion.’

‘Is it? Well, that’s just what I mean. But he seems – humane, for all that. Considerate, though it’s difficult for him.’

He wasn’t much impressed. ‘Yeah. Remember that whatever substitutes for emotion in him might have some of its outward effects. And remember, he’s not the only outworlder on this planet. He doesn’t seem so considerate towards Brazil.’

Hotch rose and prepared to leave. ‘If you survive the rebellion, I’ll string you up as a traitor.’

‘All right!’ I answered, suddenly irritable. ‘I know.’

But when Hotch did get moving, I was surprised at the power he had gained for himself in the community. He knew exactly how to accentuate the irritating qualities of the invader, and he did it mercilessly.

Some of the incidents seemed ridiculous. Such as when alien officials began to organise the war effort with complete disregard for some of the things the nation took to be necessities – entertainment, leisure, and so on. The contents of art galleries and museums were burned to make way for weapons shops. Cinemas were converted into automatic factories, and all television transmissions ceased. Don’t get the idea that the King and his men are all tyrannical automata. They just didn’t see any reason for not throwing away priceless paintings, and never thought to look for one.

Affairs might have progressed more satisfactorily if the set-up had been less democratic. Aware of his poor understanding, the King had appointed a sort of double government. The first, from which issued the prime directive, consisted of his own men in key positions throughout the land, though actually their power had peculiar limitations. The second government was a human representation of the aboriginal populace, which in larger matters was still obliged to gain the King’s spoken permission.

The King used to listen very intently to the petitions and pseudo-emotional barrages which this absurd body placed before him – for they were by no means co-operative – and the meetings nearly always ended in bewilderment. During Sorn’s day it would have been different: he could have got rid of them in five minutes.

Those men caused chaos, and cost the country many lives in the Brazilian war which shortly followed. After Hotch gained control over them, they were openly the King’s enemies. He didn’t know it, of course, and now that it’s all finished I often wish I had warned him.