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

He had been at work for only twenty minutes when a gentle tone sounded on his desk. He opened a circuit and the face of his robot secretary appeared on a screen on the wall. The communicator was of a new phosphor-dot colour type – a technique preserved through the Dark Period by the robotic art, but available so far only in the palace – and the robot’s brass-coloured face shone with a burnished sheen.

‘The investigator you hired has made his report, sir,’ the secretary said. ‘Aristos Lyos is living in a villa on the south coast, a few miles west of Shang.’

Jasperodus glanced at his wall map, then at the clock. The time was approaching midday. ‘Can you find a guide immediately?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Then have him meet me in the flying stables in half an hour.’

He cut the connection and sat brooding.

The past seven years had been good ones. He had thrown himself into his duties with genuine enthusiasm, believing in the worth of what he was doing. He was solidly for the New Empire, which for all its faults did at least offer conditions in which the arts and sciences could flourish, and this he saw as a good thing. The Borgor Alliance, against whom so much of his energy had been directed, stood only for the old feudal chaos, however much it was dressed up with technological reorganisation.

Nostalgically he scanned some of his memories. In the command tank, helping direct the huge battle in which they had smashed three Alliance armies … Yes, there was much to look back on. His nature had mellowed in that time; there was less harshness in him, and he had gained a reputation for clemency towards beaten enemies. He had found time, too, to turn his attention towards art, music, things requiring feeling as well as intellect …

And of course he was wealthy. Apart from the emoluments from his various offices – he was probably the only robot officially in construct bondage to receive such emoluments – he had taken advantage of his rank, as was the fashion of the time, to enrich himself. Not that money was attractive in itself, but it facilitated his various activities and suited his life style.

About two years ago the old itch had come upon him again.

Did he, or did he not, exist?

For five years he had been able to forget the tormenting enigma. It had returned to him almost by accident, when a raid on the premises of a religious sect, suspected of assisting Borgor, had yielded a find of old and rare books.

He rose and stepped to a bookcase, taking from it the volume that had first returned his mind to the hunt. This small book, bound in red leather which had become soft and worn with age, contained a number of short dissertations. He opened it. The first essay was entitled:

THE SEARCH FOR THE TOTALITRON

Much is known of the class of fundamental particles which exist within the universe at relative locations or points and which are responsible for the transfer of energy from place to place, i.e. between one another. Theory strongly predicts, however, that particles comprise only one half of the picture. The universe also exists as a whole, or totality, and to maintain this totality there must exist a range of ‘totalistic energies’ and, associated with them, their corresponding ‘particles’ or, particle being a misnomer in this case, totalitrons.

The particle is the form of particularity; the totalitron of totality. Whereas a particle can be described as a size and a vector within space, with other typical characteristics, a totalitron is omnipresent throughout the whole of space. It can be said that the functions of particle and totalitron are complementary and inevitable: there can be no part without the whole, and no whole without parts.

Types of totalitron

Since particles and totalitrons are opposite in nature and therefore mirror one another, so to speak, it is anticipated that there are as many types of totalitron as there are types of particle. Whether the number of totalitrons equals the aggregate number of particles is uncertain. The theory does state, however, that there is more than one totalitron of each type, and it is generally believed that totalitrons are not significantly less numerous than particles.

Properties of totalitrons

Again on theoretical grounds, totalitrons are held to possess properties corresponding to the mass, charge, spin and strangeness exhibited by particles, though it is far from clear how ‘totalitron charge’, for instance, would manifest itself. ‘Spatiability’ and ‘chronicity’ have been suggested as totalitron properties, with a property called ‘total spin’ sometimes being added. A totalitron might for example be said to possess a chronicity of 1, a spatiability of 1, and a spin of ½.

Interaction between totalitrons