‘This something is the temporal substratum. The strat is, if you like, aberrated reality; it provides the feedback that keeps real time stable, or relatively so. As such, it is potential, not actual, and less than real.
‘The deeper one goes, the less like reality the strat is. In the uttermost depths are forms of quasi-existence inconceivable for us! And they are only there at all because somewhere – in orthogonal time – is the authentic existence from which they are degraded.
‘The quasi-beings in these depths have a terrible hunger for authentic existence. But they are unable to emerge into it because they are too far removed from its nature. Some of them, however, are immensely powerful in their own realm; such a one is Hulmu.
‘He is the enemy of mankind.’
‘I had thought Hulmu was just a superstition on the part of the Traumatic sect,’ Mayar said hesitantly. ‘I hadn’t even believed the Church when it identified him with the Evil One.’
‘He is genuine and we have been fighting him for countless aeons. The empire is much older, in terms of eternity, than you think.’
The Imperator hummed meditatively. ‘Until the discovery of time-travel the existential world was safe from such monsters. There was no possibility of their touching orthogonal time. Then, in some unique accident of history, a man called Dwight Rilke hit on a flaw in the structure of the world. He discovered that there was a way whereby matter could be moved through time.
‘From that instant the universe of actuality was in danger. And that danger manifested almost immediately. During the early experiments there was an unfortunate accident whereby one of the assistants fell headlong into the temporal substratum. This man was Absol Humbart, later the Minion. He was caught by Hulmu, who realised that the weakening of orthogonal time offered him an opportunity to claw his way up and become real. But still it was not easy. In order to gain a foothold Hulmu needed first to acquire sufficient reality, in order to transfer himself to the surface.
‘For this Absol Humbart promised souls! If Hulmu could devour enough souls that had lived in orthogonal time, then he could erupt into our world and establish himself there, satisfying his enormous hunger to become real!
‘But the driblets he has been given are not nearly enough. His strategy has only one object – to be able to absorb the death trauma of mankind, past, present, and future! Only by devouring every man, woman, and child who ever lived, or will live, can Hulmu gain the wherewithal to climb out of his pit, claim the Earth and eventually, perhaps, the galaxy. To this end he and the Minion scheme, trying to create a situation that will bring about the death of humanity in special circumstances. If the Minion could have employed the time-distorter just as orthogonal time was reforming, he might have achieved this. The distorter is an instrument no man could have conceived of; its construction requires the powers of a god.’
The Imperator paused to allow them to digest its words.
‘You say we have fought this beast for aeons,’ called a brave archivist, ‘but the empire itself has not existed that long.’
Something resembling a laugh issued from the machine. ‘The empire has risen, fallen, and risen again, countless times. All that will be has been, again and again and again. Always, at this point, we have managed to foil Hulmu; always we have managed to resurrect the empire by the same means that he destroyed it. The process has, I estimate, gone through the cycle one billion times.
‘But I have not completed my tale. How did the empire arise? It was no accident. Of those involved in so rashly presenting mankind with time-travel one, San Hevatar, saw the danger. He knew that the evil Traumatic sect had to be countered. He founded the Church to fight Hulmu. He designed the rituals of the Church as a weapon and a bastion against Hulmu. That is why, Aton, your prayer was so effective against the Minion; it is especially constructed to contain vibrations he cannot endure. If it were not for the Church, all might have fallen victims to Hulmu by now.’
‘You say this,’ pointed out Aton seriously, ‘but the San Hevatar I have met did not strike me as being aware of it.’
‘He was not. Perhaps the first time around he was. But now, after so many changes and resurrections, we move through our parts as if in a dream. Did you know that you must fight the Minion? Even I did not know, I only remembered flashes, like San Hevatar. Most of the time I am completely insane, as your friend Prince Vro tells you. I am insane, and know only these lucid periods when the empire has vanished. Then I travel into the far future to visit the civilisations there, and everything becomes clear.’
‘The future people,’ Inpriss objected, ‘why don’t they help us to fight Hulmu?’
‘They cannot, and in any case they do not believe in Hulmu. They know only that the secret of time-travel is the most dangerous secret in the universe, that if it is not controlled it can destroy time. That is why they want the empire continually to rise and fall in its war with the Hegemony; it is history’s warning to mankind. There are no Chronotic empires in future ages; men are too afraid. But if the example of the empire were not before them then they might forget and begin to tamper with time.’
‘And you,’ said Aton. ‘Who are you? What are you?’
‘I am the oldest part of the empire. I began life as an administrative computer in the physics laboratories of Monolith Industries. I took part in the original discoveries concerning pi-mesons. When the struggle with the Minion began I played a leading part in it. Gradually I was extended and increased my intelligence. Now I and the Minion are the main actors in the drama. He has an advantage because he is coached by Hulmu. With every cycle he grows stronger. We, too, must grow stronger, Aton! I could not tell you how often you have fought the Minion!’
‘One billion times,’ Aton said dryly.
‘No, not so. No one could be expected to endure that for so long. Every so often fate changes the champion who challenges him. Once it was Commander Haight; now he has been relieved of the duty and knows nothing of it. Next time it may be you, or it may be another. I cannot tell. But someone always arises with sufficient power to struggle against him. And always I am here to see that he does so. Eventually, perhaps, I will have evolved sufficiently to play the role myself.’
The Imperator’s hum grew louder. ‘You must understand that of the world as it was before the empire arose nothing remains. Even the calendar is different. Dwight Rilke’s discovery was made in the twenty-fourth century of their era; and the Stop Barrier was eventually placed in what was their fifteenth century, before a technological society had even developed.’
‘You speak of resurrecting the empire,’ said Mayar, still puzzled, ‘but how can that be? How can it possibly be accomplished?’
‘In the same way that the Minion hoped to accomplish a world fit for Hulmu to live in. We have Hulmu’s time-distorter. Hulmu misled the Minion when he represented himself as the creator and projector of the images on the screen of time; he is not that, merely an impotent spectator. Nevertheless his time-distorter can, to an extent, achieve creation.’
The Imperator rolled forward and stood over those present in an almost menacing fashion. ‘The strat, just before the film of orthogonal time forms, is like a supersaturated solution waiting to be seeded. The time-distorter is designed to feed vibrations into that solution, and from those vibrations a world will grow. Here we have all the components to recreate the empire. We have the Achronal Archives with their detailed knowledge of the empire. The rituals of the Church themselves are the basis whereby the essence of the empire can be restored; San Hevatar intended them that way. We have the time-distorter to project all this on to the newly forming orthogonal world, and we have myself, Imperator, to operate it!’