Collision with Chronos by Barrington J. Bayley

Author:Barrington J. Bayley [Bayley, Barrington J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Tags: Science fiction
ISBN: 9780575102057
Publisher: Orion
Published: 2013-07-24T22:00:00+00:00

8

Watching through the transparent wall of his spatio-temporal observatory, Shiu Kung-Chien saw the ship return from Earth and dock in the nearby sphincter. He could pretend no enthusiasm for the event; the ship’s drive interfered with his apparatus and until the docking was completed he was obliged to suspend his current experiment.

He spent the time sitting patiently, drinking green tea and contemplating the dark, star-clouded universe all around him. He derived a satisfying feeling of insignificance from regarding it thus; a feeling that, as an organic, thinking being, he was a stranger in it. For it was an infinite expanse of non-time, a universe that had been made, in the first instance, without any time at all. Here and there localised processes of time had started themselves up, mostly weak, some quite powerful, proceeding in all directions, at all angles to one another. Occasionally they even met. They were accidental, small-order phenomena of limited period, but because of them life was able to exist.

On Earth, the most unhappy circumstance that could happen in the whole of existence had arisen: two distinct time-streams associated with the same planet. What was more, they were on a direct, head-on collision course.

Not that events of this nature were impossibly rare, especially in galaxies where the forces of yin and yang were so much out of balance as to cause numerous time-systems to arise. It was one good reason, in fact, for living in interstellar space, away from the traffic, as it were. Even so, Retort City itself had suffered a near-miss some centuries ago – a glancing blow by some entity travelling obliquely to its own time-direction. Shiu Kung-Chien still maintained contact with this entity: actually it was the object of his current experiments.

Pouring his third cup of fragrant tea, he noted that the space-time-ship had now slipped through the sphincter. No doubt the Earth passengers it carried would be full of hysterical pleas for assistance and he foresaw a tiresome time ahead. Personally he had opposed offering Earth any help at all, on the grounds that it might involve the full capacity of the Production Retort and cause inconvenience, particularly with regard to delays in the delivery of equipment he had ordered for his own work. But the other members of the cabinet, out of some sort of filial respect for the planet where mankind had been bred, had disagreed with him.

The meter by his side informed him that the incoming ship had shut down its engines. He rose, beckoning his cybernetic servitors.

“The area is clear. Let us begin.”

The machines rolled across the work area to make final preparations. But Shiu Kung-Chien was interrupted yet again by a gentle introductory tone from the observatory’s entrance door. Into the observatory came the sedate figure of Prime Minister Hwen Wu.

“Welcome to my retreat, honoured colleague,” said Shiu Kung-Chien in a voice that bore just a trace of exasperation. “Your visit is connected, presumably, with the arrival of the ship from Earth.”

The other nodded. “One of

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