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

A timber gate squeaked open. Horsu Greb lurched into view, red-rimmed eyes staring out over a bulbous nose flawed with warts. Rubbing sleep from his eyes and hitching up his baggy trousers with a length of leather cord, he paced the gangway, bellowing hoarsely.

‘Stir yourselves, you useless lumps! The sun is in the sky! No more lazing!’

He turned aside to urinate against the flank of an unprotesting earthmover. The stalls resounded to a general clanking and thumping; Jasperodus rattled his chains, marvelling anew at the way Horsu bolstered his self-esteem by projecting organic qualities on to the robots – by imagining that they, not he, preferred to sleep into the day.

The unkempt overseer stopped by Jasperodus’ stall and glared at him. ‘I want a good day’s work out of you!’ he roared. ‘No slacking! There’s a lot of carrying to be done!’

Jasperodus remained impassive while Horsu unlocked his chain. He moved into the gangway, receiving as he did so a jocular kick from Horsu’s steel-toed boot.

The constructs trailed out of the stable in a ragged procession. Not all were humanoid: there were quadrupeds built for hauling after the manner of horses or oxen; wheeled robots; and the self-directed earthmover bearing before it a great splayed blade. In front of Jasperodus Kitchen Help trudged along. Horsu had interrupted his litany, which he hurriedly resumed now with a list of resolutions, adjuring himself to break no plates, spill no soup, and tread on no more pot-boys’ toes.

Out in the courtyard the robots milled around aimlessly until Horsu, with much self-important yelling and many superfluous blasts upon a whistle, directed them to various destinations: some to the palace where they carried out domestic duties, some to the animal stable where they served as grooms, and the rest, Jasperodus included, out of the courtyard and along the palace wall to a building site.

The sunlight still barely slanted across the ground as they began work. The earthmover continued digging out the foundations it had started the day before. Jasperodus and two other humanoids unloaded bricks and masonry blocks from some lorries, piling them conveniently for the work to be undertaken. The building gangers had not arrived yet but Horsu, though not himself of that trade, presumed to stand in for them, placing himself on a pile of rubble and looking around him with judicious nods.

The work was tedious and heavy. Hours passed and the sun rose in the sky; Jasperodus’ body hummed almost audibly as he humped the blocks of stone which were quarried, he believed, from ancient ruins lying somewhere in the region.

Occasionally he paused to take note of anything interesting that might be happening nearby. They were working to build fuel bunkers for a powerhouse that lay beneath the palace, and every now and then a number of large baffle-plates set in the palace wall opened slightly to give forth a wave of heat. As the day progressed the exhalations grew more intense until they finally stopped altogether. Jasperodus, who was familiar with the layout of the powerhouse through having worked there as a stoker, suspected that something was amiss.

He was proved correct, for shortly a stocky, red-faced man emerged from the access tunnel and hurried to Horsu, with whom he engaged in agitated discussion. On seeing Horsu shake his head in a gesture of indignant refusal Jasperodus heightened the sensitivity of his hearing so as to eavesdrop on their conversation.

‘Do you imagine my fine robots are so many lumps of wood to be burned up just like that? Away with you!’ Horsu was saying.

‘But imagine if there is an explosion – right underneath the palace!’ the other implored with anguish. ‘Would you have the King rebuke you for malfeasance?’

Horsu parried the threat. ‘To me is entrusted only the care of the household robots. The powerhouse is not within my province and is in no way my responsibility.’

And the other riposted: ‘Indeed it is, for your robots are even now engaged in building an extension to it.’

However else Horsu might have answered remained unknown, for the Major Domo himself arrived, bearing himself imperiously and trailing behind him Kitchen Help.

The Major Domo curtly overruled Horsu’s objections. ‘This robot here will be no loss,’ he declared. ‘The kitchen staff tell me he is completely useless and more of a nuisance than an asset. So let him expend himself on one last useful act.’

With an aggrieved sigh the stablemaster looked this way and that, scratching his chin. He next looked Kitchen Help up and down and then glanced at Jasperodus; a crafty look came over his face.

‘Very well!’ he agreed. ‘Take Kitchen Help. The crisis evidently demands a sacrifice.’