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

The producer signalled to him through the side of the cubicle. He was on.

‘Fellow citizens,’ he began, ‘tonight…’

And then the impressions began to hit him. It was merely like a tidal wave at first and he was able to ride with it. But in the next few seconds it became stronger. Millions upon millions of scenes, tens of millions of human consciousnesses, were forcing themselves into his consciousness, which like a balloon expanded, expanded, expanded

And burst.

Sinatra had cornered Schultz in a small, narrow room with drab brown walls. It had no furniture, no means of escape.

‘You goddam stool pigeon,’ Sinatra raged. ‘You ratted on us all.’

‘Whaddya want me to do, Frank?’ Schultz screamed in terror. ‘You were gonna bump me off. I could see it coming.’ He had run and run and fought for his life, but now there was nowhere left to go.

‘I put you on the council,’ Sinatra said, ‘and if I want it’s my right to take you off or do what the hell I like with you.’

‘No, Frank, no!’

Sinatra leaped at Schultz. His fists smashed into him again and again, throwing him cowering to the floor. Then he attacked him with a crowbar that appeared in his hand, bringing the weapon down in three savage strokes. Soon there was blood everywhere.

Mettick burst into campaign headquarters looking desperate. ‘Get hold of Karnak,’ he demanded. ‘Don’t let him go on ipse.’

Obsier looked up tiredly. ‘Why?’ he said mildly. ‘Actually you’re too late. Karnak was taken ill at the start of the programme. We’re waiting for news now.’

Mettick sank down on to a chair. ‘He’s dead, isn’t he?’

‘Should he be?’ Obsier stared at him perplexed. ‘I hear he’s in a coma. We’re waiting for the doctor’s report.’

‘He’ll be dead,’ Mettick said in despair.

Suddenly Obsier became alert, matter-of-fact. ‘Tell me what you found out,’ he said rapidly.

‘Two things, chiefly.’ Mettick fished in his pocket and came out with a sheaf of pictures. ‘Take a look at these. They’re portraits of world-famous actors living about a thousand years ago. They were known colloquially as “Hollywood stars”. Notice the resemblance?’

Obsier leafed through them. He saw the familiar, compelling faces of the Magisters of UnderMegapolis, captioned with their names. Burt Lancaster, James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart, and so on. Some were wearing characteristic expressions; others were in strange, surprising poses. Lancaster had his head tilted, favouring the viewer with a most uncharacteristic glossy smile.

‘Absolutely incredible!’ he exclaimed. ‘What is it? Some fantastic coincidence of genetic reconstitution? Or—’ His voice sank. Unwelcome, irrepressible thoughts were going through his brain. ‘Or…’

‘You’ve guessed it.’ Metick pushed away the pictures and slumped down in his chair. ‘The change must have come fairly recently, certainly within the last hundred years. The cybration of big business reached a point where human beings were eliminated at the top. The cybration system became the actual, effective owner of the capital.’

‘Without anyone knowing?’

‘Why not? It was so complicated, data processing gives such opportunities for mystery… Besides, it only happened with the five biggest conglomerates – no, six, counting Reagan. Remember him? Each of these conglomerates became the property of a single mass of automatic data processing. Much cleverer, much more efficient than a human being.’

‘Yes, but why…?’

‘Don’t you see it? There was still the problem of the interface, to use a piece of cybration jargon. The cybrators needed personae so as to be able to deal with human beings and to help them find their bearings in a human world. So they went back through history looking for the most charismatic personalities they could find, the ones with greatest mass appeal. There must have been other considerations, too. I mean, the cybrators must have had some kind of affinity – anyway, they found them among the cinema stars of the minus eighth century. And they reconstructed those personalities in their data banks. Totally. You couldn’t call those personae puppets by now. The identification must be complete.’

‘So we’re ruled by ghosts,’ Obsier said woodenly.

‘Yes. Or eighth-century Hollywood film stars. Whichever you prefer.’

‘But on ipse holo they come over… they’re real .’

‘So what? They generate the ipseity just as they build up a persona . That’s why they have so much of it. More, probably, than the original film stars had.

‘Schultz told me. He got in touch with me in the library. He’s the odd one out, by the way – he never was a film star but a genuine gangster, the type that the actors were supposed to portray. That’s why there are no good pictures of him.’ He touched a blurred photo of a round, indistinct face. ‘He wasn’t in the original set. Sinatra created him for convenience, to look after some subsidiaries and give him added weight on the council. That’s why he chose a real gangster, I guess: it amused him somehow. But something went wrong. Schultz has developed in his own direction, has become separated from Sinatra and wants to break away from him. He tried to do a deal with me; said he’d help me break open the syn. And he told me—’ Mettick slammed his fist on the desk. ‘But too late!’

‘Told you what?’ Obsier pressed anxiously, leaning forward.

‘About ipse holo! The real reason why it’s never used, except by the syn. It’s a killer!’

‘What are you talking about?’ Obsier stared at him.

‘Ipseity transmission is a reciprocal process. It can’t work one way. The sender becomes aware of the receiver, too. When you’re broadcasting to millions of people they not only become aware of your presence, but you at the same time receive the presence of all those millions. The consciousness can’t take it. It overloads.’

Noting the other’s expression, Mettick continued:

‘That datum has been removed from the library. Everybody thinks it’s just too expensive, not too dangerous.’

‘But the syn bosses. They don’t—’

‘They’re not alive!’ cut in Mettick savagely. ‘They’re what you said, ghosts animated by electricity. You know that “question time” technique they use on ipse holo? I learned today they handle thousands of questions at the same time, calculated on a scatter pattern so nobody even suspects anything.’

They sat silently for a while. Finally Obsier forced his brain into motion again.

‘Maybe this is the beginning of something new after all,’ he said uneasily. ‘If Schultz really is going to help break the syn, it will all have been worth it.’

‘I don’t think there’s any hope there. Schultz can’t be too bright, or he wouldn’t have left it so late to warn me. And remember, he’s really part of Sinatra. He’ll never be able to hide what he’s done. I imagine the Schultz persona has been washed right down the drain by now.’

‘And where does that leave us? We’re the ones who know.’

‘We’re in a spot. It’s no good thinking anybody can fight the syndicate. They’ve got the means to power nobody else can use: ipseic holocom. We could go into hiding but they’d always be able to find us. We might be able to flee to SupraBurgh but—’ He shuddered.

‘I can’t face SupraBurgh,’ said Obsier definitely, thinking of the obscene sight of a starship riding up into the endless blue.

‘No, me neither. And that’s something else we have to thank them for—’

The desk holo chimed behind Obsier. He turned, spoke quietly to it, then swung back to Mettick.