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

To escape three times! It seemed miraculous to Inpriss. Perhaps God was helping her, she thought, but she couldn’t depend on miracles. It had become plain that the Traumatics could find her in any part of the world. Only one other recourse was open: to flee into the future and hope that the Traumatics could not, or would not, pursue her down the centuries. She had returned to Chronopolis with the intention of boarding a chronliner.

But it was dangerous and more difficult than she had anticipated. To obtain a permit to leave Node 1 she had to use her real name. And the official was proving obstructive.

‘I have to leave,’ she pleaded desperately. ‘There are some people I have to get away from!’

The official looked at her expectantly.

She fumbled in her satchel. ‘Look, this is all I have, except for the fare. Five hundred notes. I’ll land in Revere with nothing.’

She laid the money on his desk. The official coughed, then began shuffling his papers, tidying up the desk. When he had finished, the money had magically vanished.

‘It’s not really in order … but I think I can stretch a point for a charmer like you.’ He winked at her, his manner suddenly cheery and patronising in a way that filled her with disgust.

He filled out her travel permit and she hurried to the offices of Buick Chronways, one of the three commercial enterprises that had imperial charters for internodal services. There was a chronliner due to leave in a few hours, and she spent the remaining time walking the streets, keeping always to busy places.

It was dark by the time she went to the big terminus. As she passed through the barriers and set off down the long boarding ramp she could see the chronliner towering up out of its well. It had none of the grey-clad grimness of the military vessels of even greater size. Though of the same general design, it was covered with brightwork and along the flank of its upper storey the name Buick stood out in flowing, graceful letters.

With a rush of hope, feeling the press of the crowd around her, she moved towards the humming timeship.

SIX

The crew of the receiving chamber took Aton out of it quickly, silently, and efficiently.

They entered wearing strat suits, because the chamber was always partially energised in readiness for any couriers that might be en route. Once through the hatch Aton was relieved of his equipment: the tray like rudder control, the oxygen mask, and the earphones. The dispatch case they left strapped to him. No one could handle that but the commander whose duty it was to accept all messages from a courier personally.

Aton, meantime, stood staring blankly with arms akimbo, not speaking, not moving.

Two ensigns came up to either side of him and took a light grip of his upper arms. A door slid open. They urged him forward. They were used to this detail. For a while newly arrived couriers were quite helpless, were scarcely able to keep their balance, bumped into walls, could not find their way through doors.

Dimly Aton sensed all around him the regular activity of the gigantic flagship, which was much bigger than the destroyers he was familiar with.

Steadily they mounted through the pile of decks and storeys, riding on elevators and moving corridors. The chronmen they passed flicked one glance at Aton, then looked away. Everyone was embarrassed to stare at a man who had just died, and was about to die again.

Aton’s consciousness seemed to have retreated a long way from his perceptions, as though in using his senses he was looking the wrong way through a telescope. At the same time everything had a curiously flat, two-dimensional appearance to him. In the strat his mind had begun to accustom itself to four-dimensional, even five-dimensional figures. By comparison the three-dimensional world was weirdly listless, a series of simplified cartoons drawn on paper. No depth. Sounds, too, were flat and empty, without resonance.

He was feeling an urge to leave this paper world. To complete the process that had begun with his being discharged from the dispatch chamber.

To die.

They came to the officers’ quarters in the upper reaches of the timeship. Aton recognised hints of comfort that would have been out of place aboard his own Smasher of Enemies or even aboard most battleships. Then they went through some double doors into an area displaying real, though modest, luxury, such as would not be found anywhere in the Time Service except in one of the great flagships.

It was Commander Haight’s private suite. They halted before a walnut door carved with simple designs. The ensigns knocked, entered, saluted, and departed. Aton faced his former commanding officer.

Haight, sitting at a mahogany table, looked at him gloomily, broodingly. From a replayer in a corner came quiet, moody music, viols and trombones convoluting a web of melancholy calm.