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

The silence was broken by Ergurur, Proctor of Machine Technology. He was a mild-faced man with an easy manner, and he addressed an apologetic smile at Erled.

‘Er … you gave few details of the design of your proposed exploratory vessel when you submitted the tender,’ he said. ‘Perhaps you could say a little more about it now?’

Erled nodded. ‘We gave little information before because we wanted to make an early application to the Council so as to lose no time,’ he said. ‘At that stage our solidity ship was still undergoing development and the final designs were not complete.’

‘And now?’

‘Both the designs and the ship itself are complete,’ Erled replied woodenly. ‘Completed and ready to embark on its first voyage. The engine is basically a sturdier model of the engines used in the Cavity environs surveyor vessels. The ship has its own sustenance recycling plant and can supply itself with food and air for at least a year, perhaps a year and a half. It carries a crew of two.’

‘And its speed?’

‘Nearly forty miles per hour!’ announced Erled triumphantly. ‘At least, that is what we gained on the test rig,’ he added hastily. ‘The ship has not yet been tested in a true rock environment, naturally.’

Ergurur listened to these details in fascination. Erkarn, alert in his Proctorship of Emptiness Utilisation, broke in with a voice like ice.

‘You boast that the despatch of your solidity ship will not deprive the Cavity of emptiness,’ he said. ‘Nevertheless it must carry some emptiness with it, and if for any reason you failed to return then that emptiness would be lost for ever. Just what is the vacuity volume of your solidity ship?’

‘Much thought has been given to this question,’ Erled answered. ‘We even thought of cutting down the vacuity volume to near-zero by immersing the crew members in a liquid and allowing them to breathe through flexible tubes directly from the recycling plant. However, we decided that such an existence would prove intolerable during a long voyage, and so we have merely economised as much as possible. The vacuity volume of the ship is only a hundred cubic feet.’

‘Pah! And if you had your way you would despatch a hundred such ships into the rock, which if they failed to return would deprive mankind of ten thousand cubic feet!’ Erkarn leaned back, smugly satisfied with this damning calculation.

‘Quite so,’ murmured Ergrad. ‘Erled, I fear your solidity ship must be confiscated and destroyed.’

‘Could it not be placed in the Machine Museum?’ suggested Ergurur regretfully.

At this moment Fasusun spoke, giving Erled a look of sorrowful annoyance. ‘What compelled you to think up this wicked scheme, Erled?’ the Proctress said. ‘I fear your soul is bound for Hell, but I shall pray for you.’

‘Not wicked, Proctress,’ Erled replied evenly. ‘It is merely the natural scientific desire to explore and discover.’

‘But of course it is wicked! You are defying nature, defying God, trying to upset society! Were you not taught as a child that God intended us to remain where He put us? That He created the Cavity specially for us, and therefore could not possibly have created another? Think again, Erled! Try to lead a better life! Spend more time in the temple and study the scriptures!’

Erled kept silence, unable to devise a suitable reply. My God, he thought, why do they have to allow women on the Council? For bigotry and narrowness these two, Fasusun and Fatelka, had even old Erpiort beat. They spent their time attempting to produce a population trained in doctrinaire placidity, being particularly active in the nurseries.

In addition they were almost certainly fundamentalists, taking literally every word of the scriptures. Believing, for instance, that God created the Cavity in the twinkling of an eye, complete with sustenance, machines and atomic energy, and a small tribe from which mankind grew – that was before the Cavity had by artificial means been moved several hundred thousand miles, of course. Even Erpiort had too much intelligence to swallow that one, Erled thought. Doubtless the Proctor of Worship held, with some reservations, to the scientific, evolutionary theory that Erled himself accepted – that first the Cavity had appeared, possibly by act of God or in some unknown manner, and that life had then developed by an evolutionary process. First, by spontaneous generation, there had appeared sustenance, the edible yeast-like growth that could recycle body wastes and air. Then there had appeared tiny animalcules to feed on the sustenance. Rapidly these had evolved through various stages into present mankind. It was also necessary to suppose that far before present mankind had appeared, the primeval pre-human ancestors had been endowed with an instinctive knowledge of machines and of how to release atomic energy.