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

None of which made any difference as regards piloting it. The rocket acted according to the laws of its materiality, for in nullity there were no laws. Kayin turned the ship round and gave the computer the problem of finding City 5. The moment of their return being mathematically certain, he and Polla then waited patiently for the rocket to deliver them there, indulging often in the pastime of which they never grew tired.

When the rocket signalled completion of the journey, they went to the now familiar outside cavity, eager for their first glimpse of their life-long home to be by line of sight.

Polla fainted dead away. Kayin grabbed a stanchion to steady himself, and avoided the same only by a determined effort of will. The crude cylindrical ships, the litter from the war between the followers of Kord and the followers of Kuro, were scattered all over the space surrounding the City, gutted, gashed and broken, trailing bodies and equipment.

Evidently the fight had been pressed too hard, and the contendants had grown desperate over relinquishing control of the City. City 5 blazed into the darkness, as it would automatically continue to do for millennia. But the crystal dome was shattered, gaping like a broken tooth. As the rocket came closer he saw the masses of dead bodies in the airless plazas and streets. About one third of the buildings seemed to have been wrecked by an explosion, and Kayin noticed, as his glazed eyes roamed over the dead City spinning slowly like a great mandala in the void, that the big housing tower for the nucleon rocket had been broken off at the base, and lay like a fallen giant across the sward.

ME AND MY ANTRONOSCOPE

My dear Asmravaar: Many thanks for your last burst, and apologies for the long delay in answering. Not that it has been wholly my fault, because my burst sender broke down – for the third time this trip! When I get back home I shall have something to say to the Transfinite Communicator Co., and you can tell them that from me.

However, to be honest, I repaired my sender some time ago and so my silence cannot all be laid at the door of our unspeakably muddling technicians. The rest of the time I have been kept busy keeping track of a gripping little ‘adventure’ that I chanced to catch in my sights, almost in passing as it were. At the moment I am feeling tired, but also very excited, and I just cannot resist staying awake a little longer so that I can get it all down and burst it to you. It’s a fascinating story and I’m hoping it will even change your mind about a few things, you grumpy old stay-at-home!

At this point I am going to allow a note of triumph to creep into my account. Why not? – I have won a philosophic victory! For too long, Asmravaar, you and others of your ilk have laughed at the explorer-wanderers such as myself. You say that there is no point to our wanderings, that we are on a fool’s errand – that the universe, though endless, is everywhere of a dreary sameness and that one might as well stay at home where there is at least a little variety. Well of course I have to admit that there is some substance to your allegations, and none knows that better than myself. I, more intimately than any of you pessimists, have seen what the universe consists of: an infinite series of spatialities, every one more or less the same, each containing innumerable worlds conforming to only a small number of basic types, and – as you complain – rarely any life to be found anywhere. I grant that if we were to believe in the existence of a Creator of this immensity of ours, then we could justifiably charge Him with lacking imagination. Once one gets over the awesomeness of sheer physical grandeur then there is precious little else!

Yet I am reluctant to accuse nature of being niggardly. No, it is you I accuse, Asmravaar! You are guilty of ‘philosophical defeatism’! In my belief the universe still has a few surprises in store for us, if we keep looking. It can still ring a few changes!

And I have proved it!

Well, I’ll get on with it. I was transiting through the 10⁵²⁹⁸th range of spatialities, not expecting to find anything unusual, when I came across a world which turned out to contain life. Not very much life, it is true, but life. Physically the species is not of our reticulated tendricular type but of the much rarer oxygenated, bipedal type. Moreover I do not believe they can be native to their present habitat but must have migrated there a considerable period ago. At any rate, I was suddenly thankful that I had recently invested in a fine new high-powered Mark XXXVI sound-and-vision antronoscope,^* as well as in a new instant semanticiser – for this is what I saw …