Collision with Chronos

Collision with Chronos

Barrington J. Bayley

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Contents

Title Page

Gateway Introduction

Contents

Author’s Note

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Website

Also by Barrington J. Bayley

About the Author

Copyright

Author’s Note

The picture of time used as a background to this novel can be said to owe something to the discussions by J.W. Dunne, of An Experiment With Time fame, particularly from his book The Serial Universe where he sets forth the regression problem I describe in Chapter Nine.

The account of time I have chosen to derive from these arguments is, of course, a crude, fictionalised one, but it does manage to raise the question of whether the present moment is coextensive throughout the universe, as Physicist Leard Ascar first believed, or whether it is a local process, as taught to him by the scientists of Retort City. I am inclined to imagine that the second version comes closer to the truth, though whether time is associated with biological systems, or with larger bodies such as galaxies, or with even larger structures such as, for instance, as much of the sidereal universe as would be observable from one point, is an open question.

B.J.B.

1

Rond Heshke wondered if there would ever be victory without arrogance. Banners, everywhere banners.

On the raised forecourt of Bupolbloc, world headquarters of the Bureau of Politics, they hung to form a gigantic grill, like an array of sails a hundred feet tall. Even though the last of the wars against the deviant subspecies – the campaign against the Amhraks – had been won twenty years before, these banners were still redolent of military glory. And still there were the annual parades, the rousing speeches, the braying documentaries on the vidcast.

The War to Win Earth: that was what they had called it. But now Earth was won – irrevocably won for True Man – and privately Heshke thought it was time the paean of triumph was played down.

He crossed the forecourt, intimidated by the immense red-and-black canvases, which swallowed up all visitors like ants. In point of fact Bupolbloc was the most impressive of the many fine buildings in the administrative sector of Pradna, soaring up for over a thousand feet of serried glass frontages, and it exuded a sense of power that soon overshadowed Heshke’s disrespectful thoughts, making them seem sacrilegious. He entered the spacious foyer and checked his destination on the office plan.

He took an elevator to the twentieth floor and then walked through seemingly endless corridors. All around him passed the tall, handsome men and women of the Titanium Legions, the self-styled Guardians of Earth who currently had succeeded in attaining political supremacy over humanity. Wearing sleek uniforms in black and gold, all of impeccable biological pedigree, they cast disdainful glances at Heshke which he chose not to notice. He accepted that any military elite was apt to revel in its own superiority; he was, after all, but a paunchy, middle-aged civilian who, insofar as anyone could these days, took no interest in politics. His concern was with the past, not the future.