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

There was, for instance, a space that, though continuous, was not symmetrical in all directions but was hung between two great poles like a magnetic field. Motion along the direction of the axis between the poles was as easy as it is for us, but transverse movement was an altogether different phenomenon that required a different type of energy and a different name. This polarisation continued down into every event and structure, which was invariably positioned between two opposing poles of one kind or another. There was stereo space with great cracks of nullity running all through it, chasms of zero-existence which were impossible to cross and had to be gone round. There was space where an entity could travel in a straight line without incident, but where on changing direction he shed similar, though not identical, duplicates of himself which continued to accompany him thereafter. Prior to their rescue by me the Knight and his crew had believed themselves to be in such a space, for they had chanced to catch a glimpse of a woman accompanied by several daughters of various ages who closely resembled her. Also along these lines, there was a space where the image of an object or entity had the same powers and qualities as the original. This space abounded in mirrors and reflecting surfaces, and an entity was liable to project himself in all directions like a volley of arrows.

When you think about it, the necessity to be in only one place at a time is a pretty severe restriction. Many are the spaces where this law has never been heard of, and where an entity may multiply himself simultaneously into disparate situations without prejudice to his psychic integrity, roaming over the world in a number of bodies yet remaining a single individual. Chameleons have caused some puzzlement among biologists because their eyes operate independently of one another; the right eye knoweth not what the left eye is doing but each scans separately for prey or enemies. Does the consciousness of the chameleon give its full attention to both eyes simultaneously? If so, the chameleon is a mental giant which no human being can equal. This feat is a natural function, however, in the space of ‘multiple individuality’ I have described.

The Knight warned me against a restrictive concept of motion. It was not, he said, an idea of universal validity, but what we understood by motion could be subsumed under a more generalised concept he called ‘transformation’, a much larger class of phenomena. Thus there were spaces where to go was to come, where to approach was to recede, where to say goodbye was to say hello. In short, my maxim which says that to approach one point is to recede from another is not a universal law but a local case. Inversely, there were types of transformation that no mangling of the English language could succeed in hinting at. Once again the Knight suggested that I waste none of our precious time in trying to understand these inconceivable variations.

He spent some words in describing spaces that were not totally homogeneous. The space with cracks was one of these; another was ‘sheaving space’ with a quite odd quirk: the space split itself up into branches not all of which had any possible communication or influence with one another, even though they might all communicate with some common branch. Thus both A and B might communicate with C, but it would still be impossible for any message or particle to pass from A to B even via C. The separate branches usually contained innumerable worlds, with bizarre results.

Space can also vary in the quality of time it contains. (The Knight was quite firm in asserting that time is a subsidiary feature of space.) Time is not always irreversible, but in some spaces can be revisited by retracing one’s steps. The Knight fascinated me by telling of one space which he called ‘a space of forking time’ where every incident had not one but several possible outcomes, all equally real. Thus space branches continually in this continuum to develop alternate histories; where this space differs from the stock science-fiction notion, however, is that every past event is recoverable, and hence all possible histories communicate. By retracing his steps in a certain manner a man (or entity) can go back to the crucial moment that determined the shape of events and take a different path. When I reflected on how the fate and happiness of men is tyrannised over in our space by the singleness of time and the cruel dice-throwing of fleeting happenstance, this realm appeared to me to be a perfect abode of happiness.