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

Leaving the guide in the plane he trudged towards the villa, which as he neared it took on the appearance of a structure carved out of salt, so pure and crystalline white was the stone. None of the walls presented a flat surface but all were rounded, following a pattern of spherical and ovoidal curves. The roofs, which were piled at various heights, resembled the caps of toadstools.

Jasperodus knocked on a metal door but received no answer. Cautiously he walked round the building. On a terrace facing the sea sat the villa’s owner.

Aristos Lyos was aged but spry. A cap of frizzy white hair covered his scalp. He wore a simple toga-like garment caught at the waist by a purple cord. Somewhat of the spring of youth still remained in him: his spine was straight, and his face, as he turned to view the intruder, showed alertness.

That face, in youth, must have been handsome. The nose was perfectly straight and aristocratically slender. The cheeks were lean, the eyes level; the lips not full but despite that well-proportioned. It was the face of a cool, penetrating thinker.

Shyly Jasperodus approached. ‘Aristos Lyos?’

The other nodded. Jasperodus could feel his eyes on him, appraising him. He could tell a lot, no doubt, at a glance; from the way a robot moved and so on. Would he know that Jasperodus was the work of one of his own pupils, was a child of his college?

‘Know, sir, that I hold the offices of vizier to the Emperor and of Marshal of the Imperial Forces. I am here, however, in a private capacity.’

‘Then the list of your public achievements is unnecessary,’ said Lyos in a dry voice. ‘What do you want from me? If you require robots, then your journey has been wasted. I do no work now, beyond a few toys for my own amusement, and a simple construct or two as gifts for the villagers who live nearby.’

‘That is not my mission,’ Jasperodus replied. ‘I seek information only. If I may presume on your patience for a short while, all will be clear.’

‘My time is free, if your representations are not too tedious.’

Jasperodus therefore launched into a brief account of what he knew of his manufacture, describing his subsequent career – suitably foreshortened – and his continuing puzzlement.

Aristos Lyos listened with polite attention. ‘Yes,’ he agreed when Jasperodus had finished, ‘a clever robotician could incorporate this erroneous belief you hold. It could even be emphasised so strongly that it becomes an obsession, as is evidently the case with you.’ He became reflective. ‘I believe I can remember the man who made you. He came to me for advanced study at the end of a fairly long career. He could pull it off – and he obviously has done.’

‘That is not my question,’ Jasperodus insisted. ‘This is what I need to know: is there any means at all, perhaps unknown to the robotic art at large, whereby consciousness might be manufactured? Did you, perhaps, give my fa … my maker secret information? Or could he have discovered some new principle himself? Roboticians have assured me of the impossibility of this, but I shall not be entirely convinced unless I hear it from Aristos Lyos himself.’

‘It is absolutely impossible,’ Lyos stated flatly. ‘There can be no such thing as an artificially created consciousness, you may take that as being definitive. For centuries men of genius wrestled with this vain dream … eventually its futility became irrefutably established. Oddly enough I included the History of Attempted Machine Consciousness on the syllabus when your maker was with me, as I recall – so he could be accounted an expert on the subject.’ Lyos stared up at Jasperodus’ face. ‘Perhaps, seeing the distress you are trying hard to hide, I would have been kinder to lie to you. But you have asked me a straight question and I am not a devious man.’

Jasperodus’ last vestiges of hope were, indeed, vanishing upon exposure to Lyos’ words. Yet still he felt compelled to argue.

‘Item: the word “consciousness” has a meaning for me. Item: that meaning corresponds to my own “feeling of my existence”. Thus I stand here talking to you; I can feel the breeze blowing in from the sea, I can see the blue of the sea itself, and the blue of the sky above it. I experience it. How am I to reconcile this experience with what you tell me?’