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

‘Why? Because time-travel proved that the past does not vanish when our awareness leaves it; the past continues to exist. And that raises the following question: what of that awareness? Must that not also continue to exist in the past even though, paradoxically, we are not “aware” of it? And what happens to that consciousness of ours at death? It cannot be extinguished – for otherwise the past would vanish.

‘There is only one way to resolve the riddle, and it is this: the soul experiences itself as a moving moment of time beginning with conception and ending with death. At death the soul travels back in time to the moment of conception to live its life through again exactly as before. This repetition continues eternally; thus is a man’s past kept alive.

‘From this proposition the existence of the soul is proved.

‘This means that we have sat here in this room, hearing this lecture at this moment of time, countless times before, and will do so countless times again.’

With a sense of dignity Brother Mundan opened a book of Holy Scripture and began to read the words written by none other than San Hevatar.

‘“There is the body and there is the soul. The body belongs to orthogonal time. But the soul, being spiritual, is eternal; yet it does not persist beyond its appointed period in time. On meeting the end of that period it travels back to the beginning, and experiences its life anew. Thus the soul has the God-given power to travel through time.

‘“And why does the soul not remember the life it has already lived? It is because of death trauma, which wipes clean all the soul’s memories …”’

It sometimes seemed to Chief Archivist Illus Ton Mayar that the Achronal Archives, which he administered, had taken on an existence all of their own and had begun to separate from the rest of the universe. Many of the staff no longer ventured into the outside world. Mayar understood their feelings: men whose working hours were spent in cataloguing time’s mutations were apt to feel that the world was insubstantial. Here, in this subterranean cluster of vaults and bunkers, could be found a refuge from Chronotic instability.

The Achronal Archives were, in essence, a record of deleted time. Whenever an event was altered – whether by natural causes, or by order of the Historical Office, or by act of war – the consequences spread up and down historical time making the adjustment complete in all directions. Only the existence of the archives made such changes detectable. Protected by powerful time-buffers, the vaults were impenetrable to the powerful rectifying vibrations that echoed through the strat. Thus the records that were kept on every facet of the empire remained intact and could be compared with time as it currently stood.

It was a record of ghosts. Millions of men, women, and children, entire cities, nations, and cultures, that now had never existed, were stored in the archival computers. Research into these vanished communities could be a fascinating experience, but to undertake it one had to be a staff member. Not even the universities were allowed such information – there was a theory that it would weaken the fabric of time, and besides, it might reflect on the permanence of the empire.

And there were times when Archivist Mayar himself wished that he did not have to know.

In the sepulchral dimness of Vault 5 the humming note of the computer was almost menacing. The bank of winking indicator lights seemed to be spelling out a mocking message of doom.

The operator’s voice was sombre as he handed Mayar a thick print-out sheaf. ‘The results have been double-checked, sir. There isn’t any doubt about it – we knew almost straight away.’

The section had been carrying out what was known as an Anomalous Population Check. The Archives’ Current State Bank was continuously matched, as a matter of course, with a similar information bank – unprotected by time-buffers – on the surface. When they failed to match, an Anomalous Population Check was immediately undertaken so as to map out any unauthorised changes in time.

Mayar barely glanced at the print-out before handing it back. ‘I shall have to inform the emperor,’ he said heavily. That meant a visit to the palace – never a prospect he relished.

As if to accentuate the blow, Mayar had that morning received indirect confirmation from another source. Units of the Third Time Fleet had arrived in the capital, badly damaged from an engagement with the enemy. Mayar had heard that the Third Time Fleet had been beaten and forced to withdraw, and he was willing to bet that the consequence of that battle was staring at him now. Gerread, a city of some importance in Node 5 (it had been a fair-sized town even in Node 4), had been elided from history, and the souls of its inhabitants (as theory would have it) dispersed into the formless dimensions of the strat like drops of rain in the ocean.