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

Grinning, the Minion came towards him with tiny mincing steps. Aton determined to destroy the loathsome creature if he could. He ejected energy from his body, sending rays and waves against the shambling figure. The Minion laughed. His own body began to pulse, shedding sparkling rainbows all around. He seemed to regard it as a game. Their contest filled the room with fantastic forms of light, but neither was hurt in any way.

‘I was wiser. I gave myself to Hulmu. He gives me my little toys, and I help him to get what he needs – souls in death trauma!’

They both left off wasting energy in firework displays. Suddenly the sound of booted feet came from further along the corridor. The Imperial Guard were on their way.

‘Come, friend Aton,’ the Minion hissed. ‘Come to Hulmu!’

With surprising agility he bounded forward and seized Aton in his arms. Fetid breath wafted across Aton’s face, but before he could react, the Minion had phased into the strat, taking Aton with him.

The Minion was amazingly strong. Aton could not break loose from his embrace. Down they sank, spiralling and plummeting, down, down, down. The four-dimensional screen of orthogonal time was left behind. Left behind, too, were the upper reaches of the strat where what was potential already bore some resemblance to what was actual. They went down, down, into the deeps where potentiality had less and less prospect of becoming actuality – that is, of materialising on to the orthogonal world – and had less and less in common with its forms. The pressure was frightful. They sank into gloomy six-dimensional regions where nameless things lurked and waited in the murk. Aton felt brooding hatred as they passed by; the potential quasi-beings sensed that he and the Minion came from the upper world and experienced a writhing envy.

The descent was timeless and Aton seemed temporarily to lose the will to free himself. Then he began to feel the presence of a vast overpowering intelligence.

Hulmu!

Hulmu was something impossible. A six-dimensional, nonexistent shape that lashed and danced in all directions in frantic convolutions. He was lord of this region; all bowed to him.

A voice he could almost smell spoke in Aton’s mind.

‘Know me and surrender your being.’

In that instant it came home to Aton with a certainty and conviction he could not analyse who the enemy was that had been spoken of by the Imperator and San Hevatar.

The enemy of the empire was not the Hegemony. It was not even the Traumatic sect, or the Minion.

It was Hulmu.

He could not define the ultimate evil that was Hulmu. He only saw, as if in a vision, that the struggle was relentless and would continue until victory was gained by one side or the other.

With newly regained strength Aton lashed out. The Minion sought to restrain him, but he broke free and soared upwards like a bubble, out of the reach of Hulmu’s lashing tentacles. Other powers snatched at him but he knew he was safe.

Up, up, up.

TEN

Aton was semi-conscious for the latter part of his ascent to the realm of materiality. He did not fully recover until he had already phased into ortho.

His subconscious mind had brought him to familiar territory. He was standing in the deserted court chamber of the Imperial Palace’s inner sanctum, Node 1. It was night and the chamber was only dimly lit.

Silence prevailed everywhere.

After some moments he saw a lone figure seated on a couch and stepped closer.

It was Inpriss Sorce.

‘Inpriss?’

She looked up. ‘You’re back!’

‘How did you get here?’

‘Prince Vro’s men brought me. They said I’d be safe here in the palace. I’m under imperial protection.’ A note of pride entered her voice as she said the last. She smiled. ‘It’s certainly a different type of life from what I’m used to.’

‘But it can only have been minutes ago that I last saw you.’

A slightly wary look crossed her face. ‘It’s been nearly three days.’

Three days. Had he been that long in the gulf?

Shaken, he glanced at a wall clock and frowned.

‘Where is everybody? Surely they don’t retire this early?’

‘They’re all in the churches and chapels, praying. The armada has set out.’

So matters were coming to a climax. And his mission had failed.

Disconsolately he paced the great hall. He tried to imagine the pace of events beyond the bounds of the palace in the eternal city and throughout the mighty time-spanning empire. Did he fancy he heard the structure of time creaking like the timbers of a crippled ship?

Unexpectedly there came the whirring of motors. The Imperator rolled out from its hidden compartment and towered over the man and the woman.

‘My servant, Captain Aton,’ the resonant voice murmured.

‘Imperator.’