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

‘You really are a clown,’ he said. ‘Masters of infinity! That’s a lot of crap newspaper talk. The Zordems are nowhere into infinity, any more than we are. If you’re going to talk about infinity, well then, the whole spread anyone’s gone from Earth, or anywhere else for that matter, is no more than a dot. Okay, build a velocitator armature a light year across and ride it for a billion years. You’ve still only gone the length of a dot on the face of infinity. That’s what infinity means, isn’t it? That however far you go it’s still endless? For Crissake,’ he ended scathingly, ‘you ought to know that.’

‘Just the same, you’ve misled us with this talk of being stranded,’ Watson-Smythe accused him. ‘With equipment like this you can obviously find your way to anywhere.’

‘Afraid not. This gadget gives the range but not the direction. And even the range is limited to about fifty googol olbers. The Zordems have hit on a lot of angles we’ve missed, but they’re not that much in advance of us overall.’

‘Still, it must be based on a completely new principle,’ Naylor said intensely. ‘Don’t you see, Corngold? This might give us what everybody’s been looking for – a reliable homing device! It might even,’ he added shyly, ‘mean a reduction in sentence for you.’

He stopped, blushing at the emerald malevolence that brimmed for a moment from Corngold’s eyes. If he were honest, he was beginning to find the man frightening. There was something dangerous, something solid and immovable about him. His knowledge of an alien technology, and his obvious intelligence which came through despite his outrageous behaviour, had dispelled the earlier impression of him as an amusing crank. All Watson-Smythe’s trained smoothness had failed to make the slightest dent in his self-confidence; Betty remained his slave, and Naylor privately doubted whether the charge of abduction could be made to stick. There was something ritualistic in Corngold’s treatment of her, and in her corresponding misery. It looked to Naylor as though they were matched souls.

‘I thought I had dropped plenty of hints,’ Corngold emphasised, ‘that I don’t really want to come back to Earth. Betty and I want nothing more than to remain here, thank you.’

Watson-Smythe smiled. ‘I’m afraid the law isn’t subject to your whims, Corngold.’

‘No?’ Corngold’s expression was bland. He raised his eyebrows. ‘I thought I might be able to bribe you. How would you both like to screw Betty here? She’s all right in her way – just lies there like a piece of putty and lets you do which and whatever to her.’

Watson-Smythe snorted.

‘What is it you want, then?’ Corngold asked in sudden annoyance. ‘The fucking bracelet? Here – take it!’ He went to the mattress on the floor, lifted it and took a gold ornament from underneath, flinging it at Watson-Smythe. ‘It’s a piece of sodding crap anyway – I only took it because Betty had a fancy for it.’

Watson-Smythe picked up the bracelet, examined it briefly, then wrapped it in a handkerchief and tucked it away in an inside pocket. ‘Thanks for the evidence.’

Corngold sighed again, resignedly. He reached for the flagon of wine and drained the dregs, finishing with a belch.

‘Well, it’s not the end of the world. I expect Betty will be glad to see London again. But before you retire for the night, gentlemen, let me answer your earlier question – how I make the transition between here and Zordem. It’s quite simple, really – done by zom rays again, but a different brand this time.’

He went to the cupboard and brought out something looking like a large hologram plate camera, equipped with a hooded shutter about a foot on the side. ‘This is really a most astonishing gadget,’ he said. ‘It accomplishes long-distance travel without the use of a vehicle. I believe essentially the forces it employs may not be dissimilar to those of the velocitator – but instead of moving the generator, they move whatever the zom rays are trained on. All you do is line it up with wherever you want to go and step into the beam – provided you have a device at the other end to de-translate your velocity, that is. Neat, isn’t it? The speed is fast enough to push you right through walls as though they weren’t there.’

‘Why, it’s a matter transmitter!’ Naylor exclaimed.

‘As good as.’

Already Watson-Smythe had guessed his danger and was reaching for his gun. But Corngold was too quick for him. He trained the camera-like device on the agent and pressed a lever. The black frontal plate flickered, exactly as if a shutter had operated – as indeed one probably had. Watson-Smythe vanished.

Naylor staggered back aghast. ‘Christ! You’ve murdered him!’

‘Yes! For trying to disturb our domestic harmony!’

Naylor stuttered: ‘You’ve gone too far this time, Corngold. You won’t get away with this … too far.’