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

Curtly Ham-Ra once again stopped the rising hubbub. Tamm was smiling wryly. ‘I don’t imagine they gave up easily. I think they tried as hard as it’s possible to try. These days the Ramification has trouble of a different kind.’

He flicked a switch, reeling back a few inches of tape. The screen glowed with its incredible picture, accompanied by the instruction tape’s closing remark:

‘… the chief problems lie in the social and psychological fields.’

The others heard the words, but the blank looks in their eyes betrayed their lack of interest. ‘What are we going to do about outfitting an expedition into deep space?’ Barsh said.

To Kiang, Chairman of the Temporary Board, the meeting with Kord was slightly frightening, slightly thrilling. The man was large – tall, broad, and bulky; his face, which gave one the impression that it had never smiled, was also large, and lined with the impress of years of wilfully directed thought. Its colour was grey, not the grey of illness but the grey of granite, of obdurate strength. When Kord spoke, everybody listened. He was that rare man, the great leader who in times past would have directed the affairs of continents, of planets. There was something heartbreaking in seeing that powerful personality applied with full force to the promotion of stasis and conservation on this pathetic scrap of a vanished universe.

The boardroom was divided down the centre by a long, polished table. On one side sat the Temporary Board, headed by Kiang and backed by Haren, Kuro, Chippilare and Freen. Facing them sat the Permanent Board: Kord flanked by Bnec, specialist in physics, the science of materiality; Engrach, specialist in technology; Ferad and Elbern, specialists in sociodynamics. Elbern was one of Kord’s strokes of strategy, for he was a converted member of the old opposition of centuries ago. Kord knew that the errors promulgated by the vanquished party would occur again and again in the history of City 5, though he hoped with steadily diminishing force, and he realised the advantage of having a man who understood the kind of mentality that fostered them.

Kord permitted himself a direct glance into Kiang’s mobile face. They’re afraid of us, he thought. They feel young in our presence; they’re aware that we were old and wise, sitting on this board, before they were babies. But they’ll fight us if they have to.

The members of the Permanent Board lived for only one day a year. Thus one year of ageing for them spanned three hundred and sixty-five years of City 5 history. Without this device of a permanent guiding hand, Kord believed, the City would never have maintained its historical stability thus far – and in this small, unique, precious island of life stability was all-important. If social tendencies slowed down enough to require less readjustment, the dormant period could be extended to ten years, perhaps even to a hundred years.

At the moment those long, restful sleeps seemed a long way off. Inwardly Kord sighed. He was the last of a line of leaders, including men like Chairman Mao and Gebr Hermesis, who had tried to reform the mind of humanity and fix it with an eternal pattern. Always the problem was one of training the new generation to think in every way like the old. Humanity had survived their failures, but Kord was convinced that it would not survive his.

Angrily he flung the file he had studied at Kiang. ‘A hundred years ago you would have been executed for the contents of that file. I spare you now only on the assumption that rectification of the situation will immediately be taken in hand.’

‘… We do not necessarily agree, Chairman, that rectification is necessary.’

‘How many times do I have to spell it out to you, gentlemen?’ Kord said, his voice becoming gravelly with displeasure. ‘We are concerned with preserving the City, not for a thousand years, not for a million, but for ever, for eternity. Due to the nature of the human psyche this is only possible if life is regularized in every detail. There must be no new directions, no individuality, no innovations or originality of thought. The City is small. It must be protected from itself.’ Kord felt himself sweating. Only a few years ago the consciousness of what was required for survival was infused in the Ramification, in the mind of the City itself. Yet over and over again, through the centuries, he had gone through exactly such arguments as this. It seemed that the tendency to deviate, to forget, was ever-present and in time entered even the Temporary Board itself. Even so, Kord was shocked to find that the position had deteriorated so quickly in the past year, his perpetual nightmare was that one day he would awake to find that his authority was no longer valid.