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

‘My orders are perfectly explicit, Colonel,’ Haight told him. ‘We are to stay until the distorter is found, whatever that might mean.’

‘Even if it means losing the Lamp of Faith?’ Anamander seemed to find the notion incredible.

But Haight merely shrugged sardonically. ‘Yes … so what if we do? We are all expendable.’ His gaze flicked around him, as though he were able to look through walls and see his command in all its entirety. ‘What of the Lamp of Faith – do you imagine the empire cannot manage without it? The Invincible Armada will include a thousand ships as good as this one.’

The ship lifted off again and drifted beyond Base Ogop’s boundary to attack a concentration of projectors that was building up there. But it was forced to retreat. So many of its own beams were out of action that it was being outgunned, and while it left its central position, Hegemonic troops poured into the base to fight it out with the chron commandos.

The officer in charge of the technical teams spoke to Haight over a vidcom. His face was haggard with desperation.

‘There’s no distorter on the base, sir. We’ve been through everything.’

Haight cursed. ‘There has to be one!’ he snarled.

‘Sir –’

The Lamp of Faith lurched. One corner of the ship hit the concrete with a huge crunching sound. Moments later the whole mass slammed down as the lifting engines cut out and the great vessel rocked from side to side.

‘Should we phase out, sir?’ questioned Colonel Anamander in a low voice.

‘What did I just tell you, Colonel?’ Haight growled. ‘We don’t leave until we are successful, and that comes from the emperor himself.’

Captain Mond Aton had been largely unaware of events taking place outside the small bedroom where he lay. But he felt the sudden lurch followed by the impact, and knew that the ship was losing power.

The knowledge provoked only slight interest in him. The batman had brought him a passably fitting uniform. He had donned it and inspected himself in a full length mirror.

For a moment it had made him think he was back aboard the Smasher of Enemies. Things had started clicking into place in his mind.

The room shifted in perspective and suddenly acquired depth. It glowed with new colour. He was no longer in an insubstantial two-dimensional world. He could understand his surroundings again.

Now he lay quietly, considering the remarkable situation he was in.

After a while other distant noises began to intrude into his consciousness. The hissing of energy beams biting deeper into the ship. The spit of beam pistols closer by.

He rose and went into the main lounge. As he did so, Commander Haight burst in and slammed the door behind him, a gun in his hand.

‘What’s happened?’ Aton asked calmly.

Servants hurried into the room. Haight waved them away. He stepped to the large mahogany table and opened a panel in its top, turning a dial-like device this way and that.

Then he sat down at the table, his pistol pointing at the door, his free hand near the device, toying with a switch.

‘We couldn’t find a distorter,’ he rumbled. ‘Now the Hegemonics are all around us. The power has failed and our beams are gone. There’s fighting inside the ship.’

‘Is that a destruct device?’ Aton asked, eyeing the switch.

Haight nodded. ‘The one on the bridge doesn’t work. A long time ago I had an additional one installed here.’

‘Then what are you waiting for?’ Aton inquired pointedly.

The commander grunted. ‘The Hegemonics have offered a truce! It seems they want to talk to us, so I’ve agreed. Might as well hear what they have to say.’

‘They are coming here?’

‘Where else?’

Aton took a seat at the other end of the room. For some minutes they waited in silence.

At length there was the sound of footsteps and the door opened. Colonel Anamander entered. He surveyed the room and raised his eyebrows at Haight, who nodded.

Into the room came two tall slim men. They wore brocaded garments of yellow cloth that accentuated their slimness and gave them a formal elegance. The most striking feature of their apparel was their headgear: cylindrical hats over a foot high, surmounted by curved lips that projected forward for several inches.

Commander Haight kept his gun trained on them. ‘Forgive me if I do not rise to make a proper greeting,’ he said in a gravelly tone. ‘Announce yourselves.’

One of the two stepped forward. He looked at Haight with none of the rancour that was evident in Haight’s own expression.

‘I am Minister Ortok Cray, and I am a member of the Ruling Council of Saleem, which is, as you know, the faction which has hegemony in the federation you know as the Hegemony. And this –’ he gestured to his companion ‘– is Minister Wirith Freeling, of the same council.’

Haight did not show his considerable surprise. ‘I am privileged indeed,’ he murmured. ‘I am Commander Haight, a loyal servant of His Chronotic Majesty Philipium the First.’