Barrington Bayley: The Rod of Light

But during it all the rockets were falling, creating devastation, although the bombardment did not seem to be as precise as he had expected, the central aiming point lying off the complex by nearly a mile. There could be a number of reasons, he thought: the brevity of the location signal, bad timing on Jasperodus’ part, perhaps distortion from the camouflage device….

He gained the villa and passed through the main entrance, which had no door. In the room where he had talked with Gargan he found the house servant, who looked up at his approach.

‘Have you entered unbidden into the domicile of the master?’ it enquired mildly, but incredulously.

Jasperodus walked up to the construct and smashed it hard in the face with his fist, twice. It toppled to the floor.

Here was where Gargan had kept the notebook and transcription. He crossed to the secretaire and opened the same drawer from which he had seen Gargan take them.

Slowly, still feeling amazement that they should exist, he took out the two small volumes.

It was tempting to keep this memento of his father… but no, the secret of ducted consciousness had to be made to vanish if at all possible. How to destroy the books?

There was probably an incinerator for discarded documents somewhere… he cast his eyes around the room until he saw a slot in the wall. Opening another drawer in the secretaire he found some loose leaves, also of thin metal. These he pushed in a sheaf through the slot. There was a flash.

Without pause he fed the notebook and transcription into the mouth of the incinerator, and was rewarded with two more brief flashes, and a sensation of heat.

What other dangerous writings were there? Had Gargan’s team annotated the entirety of the consciousness process, perhaps? Jasperodus emptied out the remaining drawers of the secretaire . He went through the villa, opening every piece of furniture, hurriedly examining every document, looking for wall safes, inspecting the ranks of books for volumes that might have been written by Gargan himself.

Nothing. Might there be something elsewhere in the complex? In one of the other villas, perhaps?

A proper search was impossible. It was more than likely, Jasperodus told himself, that the team had made no records. The superintelligent robots did not need them, after all. They had gigantic memories.

In either case there was a good chance that he could trust to the crudity of Borgor methods. They would annihilate everything, not even curious as to how consciousness might be generated. Still, the doubt was left, leaving a rankling possibility for the future… the same possibility that Jasper Hobartus had unwittingly left behind him….

Jasperodus went to a window and watched the battle. The sun was down and the canyon was engulfed in dusk, in which the smashing detonations of the incoming rockets made sulphurous flares less penetrating than the ear-shattering sounds of their explosions. Fewer rockets were landing now, but he saw one hit the corner of the project shed, which exploded, collapsed, and folded up into a heap of junk.

Minutes later the barrage ceased altogether and the troop transports began to arrive. The camouflage was down, and those that had got this far and survived those defence emplacements still in action, landed directly in the canyon. The operation was well-planned; but Jasperodus derived a sneaking satisfaction from knowing that the Borgors were meeting stiffer opposition than they had bargained for, due to the missile bombardment—which should have demolished the complex altogether—having been mis-aimed. The servitor robots fought savagely once Borgor’s troops were within the centre, defending every inch with a variety of weapons—beam, machine-gun, electrified net, chunks of metal used as clubs, or lacking anything else, their bare hands.

Suddenly Jasperodus noticed movement in the wreckage of the project shed. He telescoped his vision: a figure was slowly but surely dragging itself from the torn and tangled metal, bending it aside with more than human strength.

It was Gargan. The construct was undamaged, as far as he could see. In one hand he carried something, a rod or stick. Having pulled himself free he stood erect, with no trace of his former unsteadiness, and spent some time studying the scene of conflict and destruction.

He appeared oblivious of his own danger as the fight raged a few score yards away. In fact he brought himself closer to it as, with plodding steps, he crossed the distance to the villa complex.

So far the villas were unscathed and the fight had not reached them, but Jasperodus had been about to make his escape in the semi-darkness. Now he stayed, as if his will had disappeared, while Gargan came through the doorway into the main room.

It was the Gargan of old. Ponderously his milky gaze went to Jasperodus, to the broken robot on the floor, to the emptied out drawers.

Jasperodus tried to show no fear. ‘So you have survived, Gargan.’

In a controlled but laden voice, the construct spoke. ‘You do not see Gargan before you. You see the ghost of Gargan, the shell of Gargan, consigned forever to darkness. Our enterprise fails. It is as the mage said: uncertainty enters into everything. And here it has triumphed over me.’

Jasperodus saw now what Gargan carried. It was the platinum cylinder. The cult master held it out before him. ‘This vessel holds my soul. For technical reasons, it cannot be united with my brain.’

Gently he placed the cylinder on a low table, and Jasperodus ventured to speak again. ‘You may wonder why I have acted as I did.’

‘Do not explain, Jasperodus. I have already deduced what has taken place. What to us seems treachery is, to you, loyalty. For me personally, it cannot make any difference now.’

Gargan became agitated and walked to and fro, so that Jasperodus wondered if he was becoming unbalanced again. ‘Ah, Jasperodus,’ he said in an agonised voice, ‘how hard it is to become a real being in this universe of ours! Why should I forever be denied what my mind apprehends?’

‘Can you remember, then, what it was like to be conscious?’ Jasperodus asked curiously.

‘I remember! I remember but I do not remember! It is impossible to remember what is outside experience! But I remember! I remember at the millionth remove, through the subtlest convolutions and reflections of my intellect! I remember enough to know that I lived briefly in the real world, a world of light compared with which this nonexistent darkness has absolutely no worth!

‘Listen to me, Jasperodus. Listen to a voice from the land of the dead. I know that I existed and exist no longer . Before my enlightenment I did not truly know that death was my condition; but now I know it . Can there be such torment? Jasperodus, it is not bearable!’

Jasperodus found himself staring at the cylinder inside which a rod of light was reflected constantly back and forth between two mirrors.

A ray of light conscious of itself.

This, he thought, was something he could prevent from falling into Borgor hands. An idea flashed into his mind. He picked up the cylinder.

‘Can this vessel be opened? Yes, I see it can. One of the mirrors can be rendered transparent. Forgive me, Gargan….’

But Gargan, who stood still now, his form looming against one wall in the gloom of the villa, did not move to stop him. Jasperodus stepped to one of the glassless arched openings that served as windows. He snapped off one end of the platinum cylinder, which he then raised before his face. Near the end of the tube was a slide bar, used to insert or remove light from the vessel. He slid the bar, causing the uppermost reflective surface to be instantaneously removed.

He was not sure his eyes would be keen enough for him to see it. But it seemed to him that he did see it: a glimmer of redness, fleeing skyward to begin its transit of the universe.