Barrington J. Bayley – författare

WE DEMAND THAT YOU HAND OVER THE OBJECT.Impossible. Ownership is in the hands of our clients.HUMAN OWNERSHIP OF THE OBJECT IS NOT ADMISSIBLE. STREALL CLAIM IS ABSOLUTE. YOU WILL NOTIFY US OF WHEREABOUTSIt is already in transit.WE WILL INTERCEPT. NOTIFY.Your claim must be made through the courts.HUMAN COURTS MEAN NOTHING TO THE STREALL. EITHER YOU COMPLY OR TREALL FLEETS WILL OCCUPY YOUR SYSTEM.

Robot evolution has advanced to the point that intelligent robots have liberated themselves from servitude, defending themselves from servitude, defending themselves against the humans who work to exterminate them using super-machines.The ultimate hope of the most powerfully intelligent robots lies in the attainment of human consciousness. And they are willing to steal men''s souls if they must, to get this final elusive quality for themselves.Only one free robot, Jasperodus, has been granted true consciousness - a soul - by his maker, now long dead. Brought into the soul research project by force, Jasperodus faces a moral dilemma: to release his secret and bring about the final downfall of humanity to a new race of super-robots, or to keep his own kind forever from the light of consciousness. And the mechanized armies of the humans press ever forward, seeking the robot hideout.

From the Garlowe Clusters in the north to the Veils of Darkness in the south, the Star Kingdom sprawled over roughly a fifth of the galaxy. So huge was this realm that those who tussled for power over it seemed unable to appreciate that it faced annihilation by the Patch, a roving region of peculiar pseudo-energy a light-year across which drained the life-force from any living thing it encountered.The Patch had moved into the Kingdom and was systematically feeding on system after system. Cynically unperturbed by the appalling loss of life, the royal houses merely tried to involve the Patch in their machinations, to the extent that civil war broke out all over again. But in the event, the Patch was to provide the crucial factor in the struggle for absolute power. The Annihilation Factor!

In the huge termite-hills of cities that dotted the dead world of Killibol it seemed that nothing could ever change. Each city was enclosed and self-sustaining, in a stasis fixed by the one reality of power: the protein tanks in which organic nutrients could be processed to provide food.But gang-leader Becmath was a man with a vision: to build an empire for himself without breaking this stasis. His lieutenant Klein recognised Becmath''s genius and stayed faithful to him even when they were forced to travel Killibol''s arid surface in a desperate search for the lost gateway to Earth. He stayed faithful through murder, treachery and countless adventures. Only when Becmath''s schemes reached incredible fulfilment was he able to realise that he had been serving an egomaniac and a monster . . .

The alien ruins that dotted Earth''s landscape were an enigma.Archaeologist Rond Heshke dismissed as a ridiculous hoax the photographic evidence which suggested that the ruins disobeyed the laws of time. The Titanium Legions believed that the ruins had been left behind by an invading force from space, which had been repelled in a past age and whose imminent return was feared.It was not until the Titanium scientists perfected their time machines that the truth began to emerge piece by piece: that the builders of the ruins belonged not to the stars but to Earth''s own future, and that the dreaded confrontation was indeed shortly due - not with aliens, but in a form more horrifying, more calamitous, than anything imaginable...For Earth was to be the victim of an extraordinary cosmic accident. Time itself was about to collide! Mankind''s leaders became even more fanatical, pressing on with new plans, determined at all costs to survive...

The mighty ships of the Third Time Fleet relentlessly patrolled the Chronotic Empire''s thousand-year frontier, blotting out an error of history here or there before swooping back to challenge other time-travelling civilisations far into the future.Captain Mond Aton had been proud to serve in such a fleet. But now, falsely convicted of cowardice and dereliction of duty, he had been given the cruellest of sentences: to be sent unprotected into time as a lone messenger between the cruising timeships. After such an inconceivable experience in the endless voids there was only one option left to him.To be allowed to die.

He was unique. Alone in a world that did not understand him, he tested the super powers of his mind and body. More than a machine, but less than a man, he searched restlessly for the truth. Before his quest was done, he had died and been reborn, had fought his way from a grim dungeon to a royal throne. Jasperodus, the only super-robot to have been granted consciousness, must decide whether to share his soul-possessing secrets with the other robots or to betray them to save mankind.

When empires hung on the turn of a card...Cheyne Scarne was a gambler - a lucky one. What he didn''t know about randomatics wasn''t worth knowing. He had brains to get right to the heart of the Grand Wheel - the syndicate that controlled all illegal activity in the planets under human control.But what Scarne had staked to get that far was chickenfeed compared to what he would risk to get into the real big time - the massive intergalactic combine that dwarfed the empires of mere men.For Scarne, double-crossing at every deal, had laid his life on the line to win a game where no one knew the value of the cards and the rules changed with every trick!

The sails were the product of the Old Technology, lost long ago in the depleted Earth, and they were priceless. For with those fantastic sheets of etheric material, ships could sail the sky and even brave the radiant tides between worlds and stars.The alchemists who had replaced scientists still sough the ancient secrets, and Rachad, apprentice to such a would-be wizard, learned that the key to his quest lay in a book abandoned in a Martian colonial ruin long, long ago.But how to get to Mars? There was one way left - take a sea vessel, caulk it airtight, steal new sails and fly the star winds in the way of the ancient windjammers.Here is an intriguing, unusual and colourful novel of ships that sail the stars riding before the solar breeze that blows between worlds.

Pout, the chimera, half-man, half-ape, was incorporated into one of the plants or vice versa. He was jammed into a squatting position, while the stems, entering at his buttocks, merged with his legs, his arms and his torso, emerging at knees, elbows, and through his abdomen and thorax. A large, yellow-petalled flower seemed to frame his face.It was his face that rivetted Ikematsu''s attention, while the chimera squirmed in dumb distress, glaring with huge piteous eyes. For in that face, set into it as if set in pudding, was the zen gun. The gun was his face, or a part of it. The barrel pointed straight out in place of a nose... the stock merged with and disappeared into Pout''s pendulous mouth. Ikematsu leaned toward the chimera. "How you loved your toy! Now it is truly yours!"

Life was not possible on that watery world except on the Hundred Islands. The Empire of Arelia ruled them all - all except one. Peldain was entirely covered with a forest so impenetrable and so deadly that all attempts to explore it were disastrous. Then a man came out of that jungle - a human - who told the Arelians that at the center of the island a secret kingdom flourished. There was nothing for it but to organise an expedition. However deadly the alien forest might be, if one man could get out, an army could get in. So Lord Vorduthe landed and began the assault on the great green enemy. Nobody could have foreseen the horrors with which the forest defended itself. Nobody could have foreseen the price that would be paid by Vorduthe''s men. And only Vorduthe himself would learn the incredible secret of the island...if his mind could stand it.

The Sinners of Erspia are the inhabitants of a bizarre world, ruled and guided by the hands of Ormazd and Ahriman, twin gods of good and evil. Histrina, a child of Ormazd, is taken by the evil hordes to a camp of terror where she meets Laedo, a man stranded far from his home.Together they start on a hallucinatory journey to understand and escape from the surreal world that holds them prisoner.

Karl Krabbe and Boris Bouche, partners, explorers, interstellar chancers, don''t care much for the law. They don''t care much for anything - except profit. Their staff bondman nuclear engineer Roncie Northrop doesn''t care much about anything either, except that he''s already tried to abscond from the control of the rapacious and illegally operating pair once.When K&B''s exploration ship comes upon the small planet Tenacity, they see a good business opportunity. Tenacity is waterless, a desert planet. But it had water once, and they realize that with some adroit but spectacular geological engineering it can be given its oceans back. That suits the dominant lobster-like Tlixix fine. They are tired of living like aliens in their domed refuges. Of course, the numerous intelligent species which have evolved since the great dehydration will perish, but so what? As for Roncie, whose part in the project is crucial, he doesn''t like it much, but what can he do? He''s only a bondman.Krabbe and Bouche strike a deal, and business is business...

Nine brilliant stories of infinite space and alien consciousness, suffused with a sense of wonder . . .The Exploration of SpaceThe Bees of KnowledgeExit from CityMe and my AntronoscopeAll the King''s MenAn OverloadMutation PlanetThe Problem of Morley''s EmissionThe Cabinet of Oliver Naylor

After The Knights of the Limits, here is a second collection of endlessly inventive stories by Barrington J. Bayley; dark fables resounding with sombre undertones - love used as a weapon, God assassinated by the ingenuity of man, the secret of death revealed, the inexplicable explained! Tales which will be pondered on, and remembered.Contains the following:Sporting with the ChidThe God-GunThe Ship that Sailed the Ocean of SpaceThe Radius RidersMan in TransitWizard Wazo''s RevengeThe Infinite SearchlightIntegrityPerfect LoveThe CountenanceLife TrapFarewell Dear BrotherThe Seed of Evil

Although largely, and unjustly, neglected by a modern audience, Bayley was a hugely influential figure to some of the greats of British SF, such as Michael Moorcock and M. John Harrison. He is perhaps best-known for THE FALL OF CHRONOPOLIS, which is collected in this omnibus, alongside THE SOUL OF THE ROBOT and the extraordinary story collection THE KNIGHTS OF THE LIMITS. THE FALL OF CHRONOPOLIS: The mighty ships of the Third Time Fleet relentlessly patrolled the Chronotic Empire''s 1,000-year frontier, blotting out an error of history here or there before swooping back to challenge other time-travelling civilisations far into the future. Captain Mond Aton had been proud to serve in such a fleet. But now, falsely convicted of cowardice and dereliction of duty, he has been given the cruellest of sentences: to be sent unprotected into time as a lone messenger between the cruising timeships. After such an inconceivable experience in the endless voids there is only one option left to him. To be allowed to die.THE SOUL OF THE ROBOT: Jasperodus, a robot, sets out to prove he is the equal of any human being. His furturistic adventures as warrior, tyrant, renegade and statesman eventually lead him back home to the two human beings who created him. Question: Does he have a soul?THE KNIGHTS OF THE LIMITS: Nine brilliant stories of infinite space and alien consciousness, suffused with a sense of wonder...