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

Among the services his circuits controlled were various domestic functions, as well as office and administrative terminals used by the Emperor Charrane. Jasperodus found that this made him able to vent his spite if he so wished. For a while he amused himself by subjecting the great Emperor to a number of petty inconveniences – withholding water when he took a shower, or suddenly delivering it scalding hot or icy cold; transmitting to him the wrong reports through his terminals, or even better, writing up totally fictitious reports on the subject called for; putting through a call to Mars when Charrane had asked to speak to someone a hundred yards away; switching the lights on and off when he retired to bed; interrupting his act of love with wife or concubine by activating all the appliances in the room, and so on. But he desisted after a while lest Charrane should order a total overhaul of the palace’s cybernetisation. He could have interfered in the life of the administration more seriously if he so wished – he comprised, for instance, the data retrieval service for the planning staff – but he abandoned any such futilities.

Instead, he began to think of escape.

One day he made a scan of his demesne, looking through each sound-and-vision perceptor in turn, glancing at the inflow and outflow of each terminal. Suddenly he stopped short.

His face older and more lined than when he had last seen him, his old friend Cree Inwing sat in a tiny, stuffy office in an out-of-the-way part of the palace used by the Department of Military Supply. The brisk moustache was still there, as was the military bearing. He wore the epaulettes of a major, and was talking through the all-purpose terminal (Jasperodus had to admit that the new installation had achieved a much simplified method of communication) to the Logistics Section, sorting out details concerning the transportation of a batch of spare parts.

That finished, he rose and replaced the file holder on the shelf behind him. Watching through the same vision perceptor Cree had just been using, Jasperodus saw that he now walked with a pronounced limp.

He returned to his desk. Jasperodus spoke softly through the terminal.

‘Cree.’

Inwing looked round startled. ‘Who is it?’

‘It is I, Jasperodus.’

Bewilderment appeared on Inwing’s face. Then his expression firmed. ‘That is not his voice,’ he said sternly.

‘My own voice is lost to me. I can only use whatever vodors are available.’

‘Then where on Earth are you? I heard you had been … destroyed.’

‘There are bits of me all over the palace,’ Jasperodus told him. ‘I was destroyed, but only to a degree. The engineers incorporated me into the service system.’ He chuckled gently. ‘A gross underutilisation of my components, if you ask me.’

He went on to describe in detail how he had been broken up, and how he had been able to reconnect all the parts of his redeployed brain through the system’s comlines. Cree reacted by looking in turns astounded and agitated, and at one time his hands began to tremble.

‘I want to escape this imprisonment,’ Jasperodus finished. ‘Will you help me, Cree?’

‘Wait! Wait! Don’t go any further!’ Cree rubbed his eyes, then leaned forward with his elbows on the desk and buried his face in his hands. ‘Give me time to take it in!’

Jasperodus waited. He realised that Cree was now middle-aged, no longer the dashing young man he had once been. Jasperodus’ entreaty doubtless came as a severe crisis for him.

Finally Cree sighed and uncovered his face.

‘So you want to be reconstructed.’

‘Yes.’

Again Jasperodus waited, for what seemed to him a long time.

‘Well?’ he said then.

‘No need to ask. I’m with you, all the way.’

‘It will involve you in some risk,’ Jasperodus pointed out.

‘I owe it to you. Besides, I heard something about that raw deal you got. A bad show, Jasperodus. I’m sorry.’

Jasperodus was elated. He had not expected to find help so easily. He had anticipated having to suffer his living incarceration for years before finding some means of extricating himself.

‘You’ve heard my tale,’ he said. ‘What of yours?’

Cree shrugged. ‘Oh, my story is ordinary enough. I got my commission – thanks to you. Had some good times. Got wounded in action on Mars – lost part of a leg. So here I am with a desk job in Tansiann. Still, things could be worse.’ He ruminated. ‘What happens now, Jasperodus? I’ll do whatever you say.’

‘I know I can depend on you,’ Jasperodus said. ‘Listen: I know exactly where all my components are as far as the service system is concerned, but that gives me, in effect, only my brain and a few ancillaries. I have no body. It will be necessary to acquire a new one, and for that you will need money. Also, we will need the services of roboticians we can trust and who are prepared to act criminally. They will need to be bribed.’

Cree nodded. ‘I understand. My funds are at your disposal. If they are are not enough, well …’ he fingered his moustache. ‘We will think of something …’