The Fall of Chronopolis by Barrington Bayley

Author:Barrington Bayley
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781473201941
Publisher: Fontana/Collins
Published: 1974-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

Seven

‘It’s hard to say what it is, or what it’s like,’ Aton muttered. ‘There are really no words to describe it. All the words of our language refer to three-dimensional, orthogonal time.’

‘Are the experiences still in your memory? Are they vivid?’

‘Yes, but they tend to fade, to become … recast so as to resemble ordinary experiences. Such as what you might see on a strat screen.’

Commander Haight sighed deeply. ‘That figures. A strat screen interprets the substratum in terms of sensory criteria. One might well expect the brain’s memory banks to do the same.’

They were heading back towards Chronopolis, Node 1, accompanied by the Song of Might, and were already deep inside the empire’s historical territory. Haight had been kept busy, first attending to repairs to the Lamp of Faith and then negotiating a homeward course, the journey to the frontier being under escort by a squadron of Hegemonic Tower-class ships. But the moment he had been able to take a rest from his duties he had hurried to his quarters to question Aton closely on the nature of the strat.

‘Nothing has a single nature,’ Aton said. ‘Everything merges into everything else; there are a billion aspects to everything. Nothing exists as an object; all is flux and motion.’

‘Hmmm.’ Haight listened carefully to the words, fixing his gaze on Aton’s face. It was as if he was trying to find in Aton’s steady eyes some glimpse of what those eyes had seen.

He was somewhat disappointed by the results of his experiment. Aton’s descriptions had been fairly lucid but resembled technical descriptions such as one might find in textbooks. They did not convey the essence of the experience.

Aton’s return to normalcy was also something of a disappointment to him. He turned, stretched his weary limbs, then stepped to the cocktail bar and poured himself a stiff slug of gin. After brief hesitation he poured one for Aton too and pushed it across to him.

‘I have not had my money’s worth,’ he said with a grim smile. ‘Interfering with your hypnotic instructions should at least, I would have thought, have produced some interesting psychological disorder. But here you are as healthy as apple pie.’ He reflected before knocking back his gin. ‘Perhaps next time I should try an ordinary criminal type who will have no mental discipline.’

Aton had a question of his own. ‘Commander, do you think the representations the Hegemonics have made to us will influence policy in Chronopolis?’ His face wore a worried frown.

Haight looked at him in surprise. ‘Don’t be a fool, Captain. The emperor’s will is inviolable.’

‘But, sir –’

‘I would probably not even bother to deliver such pathetic pleas,’ Haight told him irritably, ‘had not the Hegemonics inadvertently given us such valuable information at the same time. My orders were to seize the distorter or to sacrifice the mission in the attempt. But that business about its origins is most peculiar, don’t you think? One can only think that there is high treason in the realm. The historical

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