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

On leaving, he glanced back at the pair. Socrates had moved close to his master, and they both gazed out to sea. Then the robot bent and spoke some words into the old man’s ear.

Back in Tansiann that evening Jasperodus hurried through the palace towards his apartments but was waylaid suddenly by an acquaintance who appeared from behind a pillar.

‘Jasperodus! I am so glad to have found you. Have you seen Caught in the Web yet? It is superb!’

‘No, I … haven’t found the time.’

‘Please do. The reviews do not mislead. Speeler really demonstrates the use of dynamism when it comes to dramatic content. And such a clever counterbalancing of themes … you’ll get a good laugh out of it, too.’

Jasperodus’ interlocutor was a fellow robot, Gemin by name, one of several whose duties in the administration had led them to enter the social life of the court. He was a more suave version of certain wild robots Jasperodus had been conversant with: witty, elegant, proud of his sophistication. He and his set – which also included humans – looked upon themselves as the whizz-kids of the establishment. Inventive, bursting with enthusiasm for the modern world Charrane was building, amateur experts on the fashionable trends in drama, music and painting, they cultivated an outlook of irreverent cynicism, almost of foppishness.

Gemin lounged against the pillar, one leg crossed over the other. His almost spherical face, with its disconcertingly bright orange eyes, gleamed. ‘I hear the planning staff is buzzing with something big, Marshal. Come on, now, what’s afoot? Don’t tell me you’ve adopted my plan to drop the Moon on Borgor!’ He chuckled.

At any other time Jasperodus would have been glad to discuss Speeler’s new play Caught in the Web with him, or even to exchange banter about top secret decisions. All he wanted now was to depart. There loomed in his mind the knowledge of the emptiness that was within Gemin, and he knew it was a mirror of his own emptiness; the emptiness that by himself he could not see. He fancied he could hear mechanisms grinding, churning out the dead words.

‘Excuse me, I have business,’ he said curtly, and strode on.

Alone in his apartments he wandered through the rooms, trying to quieten his agitation. He had received the answer he had expected, had he not? Then he should be suffering no disappointment.

One of the rooms, the one with the north window, he used as a studio. He stepped to the half-finished canvas on the easel, took up the brush to add a few careful strokes, then desisted. The light was not good enough; he needed morning light, not that of electric bulbs, for this particular picture.

He looked slowly around at the paintings littering the studio, as though wishing to assess his progress so far. He nodded; he knew that his work was good. He had made no attempt to pander to fashion; by many his pictures would be adjudged outdated. His purposes had been purely private, and he had settled upon that style of painting which seemed best suited to express the emotions that ran deep in him. The greater part of the canvases were landscapes or seascapes, depicting his feeling for the planet Earth (which had been heightened on that occasion, seemingly long ago now, when he had floated in space several hundred miles above it). They were largely naturalistic, but lit with flaming flashes of imagination. Thus a bulky boat sat sedately amid a universal fire that was concocted of sunset, sea and sky.

Jasperodus’ other main effort to prove himself in the field of feeling lay in music. He had worked assiduously at the art of composition, begging at one time the help of Tansiann’s most distinguished composer. So far he had exerted himself in a number of chamber works and was beginning to get the measure of his talent. Already he was planning something more ambitious: a definitive work of lasting value. As a singer, too, he had discovered some merit – to the delight of his teacher, for his electronic voice was easier to train than a human one.

Closing the door of the studio behind him he returned to the main lounge, where he sat down, took his head in his hands and uttered a deep sigh (a humanoid habit he had never quite lost).

Then he gave a cry of exasperation. What was the use of brooding over this tormenting enigma? It could only end in total dejection, and possibly, eventual nonfunction.

With a determined effort he forced the gloom from his mind. He could be content with what he had: he was accepted in the world of men, and by his outward works he was no less than they were.

It had been a taxing day and he needed to indulge himself in a pleasurable diversion, and there was one particular diversion that he knew from experience was uniquely consoling.

He made a phosphor-dot communicator call to the set of apartments adjoining his own, then repaired to a small room which was kept locked and which would open only to himself. When he emerged Verita had arrived and was waiting in the boudoir, already naked.