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

‘Time is composed of a wave structure. The nodes of the wave travel at intervals of approximately one hundred and seventy years and are of great interest to the time-traveller since they comprise “rest points” in the tensioning of the Chronotic energy field. This is of crucial importance in the business of time-travel, because matter can be transported from one node to another and will remain in place without any further expenditure of energy. On the other hand if matter is transported to a time between nodes, or conversely is taken from between nodes and is deposited somewhere else, it will not persist in its new location without a continuous expenditure of energy, usually accomplished by means of a device called an orthophase. This is the reason why nearly all Chronotic intercourse takes place from node to node. The seven nodes covered by the span of the empire form, as it were, the seven continents or provinces of the empire, while the intervening periods comprise a series of hinterlands, benevolently governed but rarely seeing a time-ship except in time of rebellion or by order of the Historical Office.

‘In ordinary life, of course, none of this is of any consequence, since the nodes are invisible to us.’

‘Why are there nodes, Brother Mundan?’ asked Prince Kir seriously.

Mundan frowned again. ‘We may take it as part of God’s wisdom, Highness, though technically it is, as I say, the wave structure of time. The nodes give the empire an absolute standard of time-measurement – for the movement of the nodes is absolute, not relative. We are fortunate enough to live in Node One. Today, for instance, is Imdara of the fifth month, and tomorrow will be Juno of the fifth month. When tomorrow comes it would be possible for us to travel back in a time-machine to today, Imdara – but Node One will not be here. It will have moved on, to Juno. Thus nodal time, as apart from historical time, is the time the empire uses to conduct its business. The clocks of the time-fleets measure nodal time.

‘Imagine what chaos would reign if we tried to govern a time-travelling empire where time was uniform, not gathered into nodes. If it were a simple matter – say, for a man to travel into tomorrow and meet himself there – why, antinomies and paradoxes would abound in such confusion that no order could survive. Time itself, perhaps, would break down and the whole world would sink into the substratum. That is why God, in His great wisdom, has so arranged the universe that the natural period between nodes is greater than the span of a man’s life, so that he will not meet himself. And it is to prevent the harmful accumulation of paradoxes that it is forbidden to travel into internodal time, except in the emperor’s name.’

Princess Nulea giggled. ‘Narcis doesn’t think so!’

‘Silence!’ Brother Mundan’s face became an angry red. He was well aware that certain members of the imperial household did not consider themselves bound by the laws that restrained the rest of society. But he would brook no mention of Prince Narcis’s unspeakable perversion here.

Princess Nulea lowered her eyes. ‘Sorry, Brother Mundan,’ she murmured, smirking.

‘I have a question, Brother Mundan,’ another young prince interrupted. ‘What happens to a timeship if it phases into orthogonal time between nodes, but has a malfunctioning orthophase or runs out of power?’

Mundan had been asked that question before by this very class. He was convinced the questioner was doing it because he knew it distressed him.

‘In that case,’ he said, fighting to keep his voice calm, ‘the ship will remain in phase for a short time. Then it will out-phase automatically and sink into the substratum, together with every soul on board.’

He turned, as much so as to hide his face as anything, and wrote on the blackboard the additional formulas which, together with the derivations from the mass-energy equation, described the nodal system associated with time’s forward momentum.

Then, once he was sure he had recovered his composure, he faced the class again.

‘Now we come to the question of the soul,’ he said quietly. ‘The empire itself, if bereft of religion, could subsist on the first two truths alone, though it would not be the empire we know. Knowledge of the soul is the empire’s spiritual meaning, as expressed by Holy Church.’

He paused to bring home the seriousness of the third truth, almost daring them to cheek him further. But they did not. They knew that on this subject he was fanatical. Any jeering concerning the existence of the soul would be reported straight to Arch-Cardinal Reamoir.

‘Prior to the revelations received by San Hevatar it was even possible for atheists to deny that the soul exists at all. Once time-travel had been demonstrated, however, the existence of the soul became indisputable.