Blood and Iron

Now he had reached the place where the columns divided, and he followed the left-hand stream. To his side he saw, not four hundred yards away, the edge of the first moat. And beyond that, the grey bodies of infantryrobots, marooned there to fight him and his army. They just stood and gazed at the seemingly endless stream of robots that marched past them. No one on the moat raised a gun in challenge, nor did any members of the Uncertain Army.

Kavan marched on, following the length of the iron wall to his right. From the ramparts, more robots gazed down at him, their gradually darkening silhouettes lit by the golden light behind them.

A flash of silver, and Calor appeared at his side.

‘Something’s up, Kavan. They just stand there, watching us.’

‘They’ll be hoping to settle this by words,’ replied Kavan.

The robots ahead were coming to a halt; a wave of stationary metal seemed to travel back through the moving stream.

Kavan, Ada, Calor, Goeppert and the rest stopped. They turned to face the city.

‘Now what?’ asked Calor.

Kavan looked to the left and right, searching for any signs of weakness in the seemingly impassable wall. There were none. For the moment.

‘Now what?’ repeated Calor.

‘Is there any question about it?’ said Kavan. ‘Now we attack.’

Years ago, Karel had told her about the Centre City, long before the war had come to Turing City State.

‘It’s the utility of the place, Susan,’ he had said, eyes glowing as he remembered his recent trip. ‘Everything is just iron and steel and brick. There is no decoration, no paint, save what they use to keep the rust at bay. I walked down streets surrounded by grey and green and blue robots, and I saw nothing there that didn’t have a purpose.’

‘They’ll be making a point,’ Susan had said. ‘It won’t be the same inside the buildings, you can trust me on that!’

‘No, you don’t understand! That’s not the way they think in Artemis City. To them, everything is bent towards Nyro’s purpose.’

‘That will be what they say,’ laughed Susan. ‘There will be some variation in the way their minds are twisted. There always is! Listen to me, I’m a mother. I know what it’s like to make a mind. There’ll be decoration somewhere in that city. And even brutal utilitarianism is a sort of aesthetic statement.’

‘I realize that. But it’s different there, Susan. They really believe in what they’re doing!’

‘Most of them will,’ Susan agreed. ‘But anyway, I don’t like you going there Karel. I don’t like what Artemis City is doing. They say they are going to attack Wien!’

‘They may do.’ Karel had been suddenly serious. ‘But that’s the way they think. It’s the way their minds are twisted. That’s what I’m trying to explain!’

‘Then I don’t like the way their minds are twisted.’

‘Well, at least they are true to themselves. You can see it in their Centre City. You’d understand if you could see it for yourself.’

‘Well, I don’t think I ever will…’

But she had been wrong on both counts. Here she was now, thought Susan, and look, Karel had been right.

The Centre City was well made, but it was utilitarian from top to bottom. The road was constructed of good brick, as were the walls. There were steel and iron pillars and doors, steel window frames and guttering and copper tiling, and that was it. It wasn’t like the centre of Turing City, where metal had leaped in loops and arches, and stained glass and copper and brass chasing had decorated every surface. The paint in Turing City had been of all colours; here, if paint was used at all, it was the same standard red lead, splashed onto the metal with little waste but little care.

There was a stillness in the middle of the Centre City. Occasionally she would see a figure, hurrying along in the distance, or a door would open and shut further down the street, and a clerk of some kind would come dashing past.

One of them had called out, ‘Kavan is here!’ as he hurried by, three rolls of foil tucked beneath his arm. The panelling around his legs was loose, as if he had been suddenly called away while tending himself. She watched him go, and then turned and resumed her wandering through the streets.

This was where the computers worked, she knew. This was where the calculations were performed that balanced metal coming into the city with robots walking out. All the numbers that modelled the Artemisian State were brought here on sheets of foil: tons of coal mined, yards of railway line laid, gallons of petroleum refined, number of robots built, number of robots conscripted… All of these were added and multiplied, means and standard deviations calculated, regression lines plotted on yet more sheets of foil, and then reports were compiled, the mass of data reduced to a few lines of figures and graphs, and then those results inscribed on yet another sheet of foil that would be passed to the leaders of Artemis, that they could better decide their future strategy.

Susan understood all that, it was what she used to do back in Turing City, though for very different reasons. There it had been about maximizing happiness. There they hadn’t exactly tried to put a number on beauty, but they had least attempted to model curves both on foil and in actual steel that were pleasing to the eye.

Even so, Susan was confident of this: that whatever had happened to Nettie would be logged here somewhere. Somewhere amongst the millions of sheets of foil that resided here would be the record of what had happened to her friend. Find Nettie, and then maybe she would be ready to look for Karel. If he hadn’t found her first.

All she had to do was find the correct sheet.

Another robot came hurrying towards her, his shell painted the green of a computer.

‘Hey,’ she called. ‘I’m looking for Spoole. Where is he?’

‘In the Basilica, I should think. You should try the Main Index, two blocks over,’ said the robot. ‘Though you won’t find anyone to help you there. They’re on a stripped-down staff what with Kavan and everything.’

‘That’s okay, I’ve got my orders.’

‘Really?’ said the other robot, suddenly suspicious. ‘And what are they? Shouldn’t you be on the walls with the other infantry?’

‘No,’ said Susan. ‘And my orders are none of your business. I’ve been sent here on an important job.’

Susan had killed another robot not half an hour ago. At the moment she felt as if she could do anything. Facing down a computer was the least of her worries. She held his gaze.

‘Okay,’ he said, ‘fine. We’ve all got our jobs to do.’ And he hurried off down the road.

Susan set off in the direction he had indicated. The streets seemed hollow, empty of life and movement. Nothing but steel doors set in red-brick walls. One of them opened and another computer appeared. Her courage had not yet deserted her; she decided to bluff it out.

‘I’m looking for Spoole,’ she said.

‘Only one of you?’

‘How many did Spoole expect?’

‘It’s not for me to say,’ replied the computer. ‘But I suppose a robot in his position will be happy with what support he can find. You’d better come this way!’

Vignette had been right, she realized. The Generals really were in disarray. The city was not being properly led at the moment, and that left scope for robots such as herself to move between the spaces.

She followed the computer through the door, down a corridor, into huge room, past lines of desks. A few green-painted robots still sat working at them. Steel styli scratched shapes into the metal foil.

Up one flight of stairs, and then another. She passed more rooms where robots still worked.

‘The sheets pass up the building,’ said the computer, conversationally. Susan had the impression that, to him, the coming war was nothing more than a reason for more foil to be written on. His true world existed in here, all else was just pale shadows. ‘The figures are analysed and reduced on each floor. As they approach the upper levels all that data is changed to information.’

‘Oh,’ said Susan.

The computer touched her elbow, the current in his hand weak.

‘I thought you might like to know,’ he said, smiling all the time, ‘while you’re here and all. People look at Artemis City and all they see is train tracks and infantryrobots, but there is more to this state than that!’ He squeezed the grey metal of her elbow harder. ‘No offence intended, of course.’

‘None taken,’ said Susan as they climbed yet another flight of steps. The robots on this floor seemed slightly better built than the ones below. The foil they worked on was of higher quality, judging by the colour of the metal.

‘These offices are what makes Artemis possible!’ said the robot proudly. ‘Those robots are producing the information that will enable Spoole and General Sandale and the rest to make decisions. But decisions are only part of the story. Okay, there are tactics involved in attacking a city, but that’s not all. You wouldn’t believe what it takes to move guns and troops and supplies and ammunition to the right place! Logistics is the key to Artemisian success!’ His eyes glowed as he spoke, but that glow suddenly faded. ‘Saving the contribution you and the other infantry make of course,’ he added.

They had left the building now. They were walking out across a glass and metal bridge that stretched over the street far below, connecting the computer office with the building opposite. Susan’s gyros lurched when she realized where they were going.

‘Is this the Basilica?’ asked Susan, in wonder.

‘Oh yes!’ said the computer, proudly. ‘This bridge is part of the information superhighway that connects all of the Centre City! Hundreds of sheets of foil a day travel this way!’

They entered the Basilica, and Susan looked around at the decoration that had appeared. Maybe it wasn’t as ostentatious as that of Turing City, but it was there. Gold, silver, platinum, titanium, tungsten, all wrapped around each other, moulded into the walls. Always discretely, austerely, but there nonetheless.

She had been right. The Centre City was a statement after all, and the thought filled her with sadness. She doubted she would ever be able to tell this to Karel.

But these thoughts were pushed from her head as the robot opened a door and led her into a sparsely furnished room. A steel-clad robot stood inside, gazing out of the window. So simple was his appearance that Susan did not realize who it was until the computer spoke.

‘There’s an infantryrobot here to see you, Spoole.’

They’d built trenches and walls, thought Kavan. They’d lost already. What would be in those trenches, he wondered. Petrol? Hot oil? What would he put in them?

Kavan knew the answer to that: he wouldn’t have built them in the first place.

‘The trenches can be bridged,’ said Ada.

Kavan looked at the engineer, her blue body streaked with oil. She was loving this, he knew. He could hear it in the rich hum of current that rose from her body.

‘Not yet,’ he said. ‘We’d be cut down by the troops in the middle if we funnelled ourselves in that way.’

‘Well, when you’re ready, just say the word.’ Ada didn’t seem to mind. She was gazing eagerly at the iron wall. ‘Just get me close enough to that. Let me get to work on it.’

‘I will.’ Kavan felt a curious sense of satisfaction. This was what he was made for. He was back in his element again. Something caught his attention.

‘What is it?’ asked Ada, unscrewing the end of a metal cylinder, checking the explosives inside.

‘That Scout.’

‘Yes?’

‘You don’t see many male Scouts, do you?’

‘Something to do with the pattern of the mind,’ said Ada, glancing at the silver robot nearby. ‘It works better when it’s female.’ The robot’s body was as graceful and feminine as any other Scout’s, but there was something about the way that he went through his warm up movements that was unmistakeably male.

‘Why do you ask?’ said Ada. ‘It’s a funny thing to wonder about, just before a battle.’

‘I don’t know,’ said Kavan. ‘We take things for granted, don’t we? Did you ever have children Ada?’

‘No. That’s a job for the mothers of Artemis.’ She gazed at him. ‘Did you ever have children, Kavan?’

‘No. We are all woven with our own purpose.’

And this is mine, he reflected.

‘Okay,’ he said. ‘It’s time to begin.’

Susan and Spoole

‘Come in,’ said Spoole.

Susan walked into the room, her gyros spinning.

‘Turn down the power,’ said Spoole, ‘I can feel the current in your electromuscles from here.’

With an effort, Susan forced herself to relax.

‘What’s your name, soldier?’

‘Susan.’

‘Susan. And how many robots to you represent, Susan? How many infantryrobots do you bring to follow me?’

‘How many?’ said Susan. ‘There’s just me.’

‘Just you?’

If Spoole was disappointed, he didn’t show it. He looked more closely at her.

‘Who are you? You don’t wear that body like an Artemisian. Are you a conscript?’

‘My name is Susan. I’m a Turing Citizen.’

‘There is no such place any more.’

Susan looked at Spoole. ‘I thought that you would be at the front line, leading your troops.’

‘Artemis is no longer led in that manner,’ he said. ‘Besides, there are other plans in place…

His voice trailed away.

Susan stared at the robot standing by the window, his body reflecting the yellow glow of the lights beyond. This was Spoole, the leader of Artemis. She was standing not five feet from the man who was ultimately responsible for the death of her child, the loss of her husband and the destruction of her home.

Spoole had turned and was looking out of the window again, gazing at nothing. His body seemed simply constructed, but Susan recognized excellent metal work when she saw it. She could feel best-quality steel, her fingertips almost tingled at its presence. Spoole was an expert at bending metal, his handiwork had a cold sort of humour about it: his body was austere at first glance, but elegantly made when you took a closer look. It was the same joke that the Centre City had played on the rest of the continent, as they had taken it apart.

One of the perpetrators of that joke was standing right in front of her. If she brought down her hand hard enough, she could break his coil. So what was stopping her?

And she knew the answer. Vignette had been right. Until you live the reality, you can never be sure the way your mind is woven. This wasn’t the way she was made.

‘You can’t see Kavan’s troops from here,’ said Spoole, conversationally. ‘The wall obstructs their view.’

‘Really, Sir?’ said Susan.

‘You are from Turing City, aren’t you? We don’t say ‘Sir’ in Artemis, Susan.’

‘Very well.’

‘You didn’t build walls around Turing City either, did you, Susan?’

‘No, Spoole.’

‘Nor did we in the past. But things have changed. I remain here whilst others lead.’ He turned suddenly to face Susan. ‘They leave someone to guard me, and I don’t know whether it is an insult or a subtle threat. What do you think, Susan?’

He was testing her. Or was he teasing her?

‘I don’t know,’ she said.

‘And what would you do if they attacked me now, Susan. Would you defend me?’

‘If who attacked you?’

‘Though they forget I used to be a soldier too,’ continued Spoole, not appearing to notice her question. ‘If they do come in here, they’ll have the two of us to fight.’

‘Who will attack us, Spoole? You mean Kavan, right?’

‘Kavan?’ laughed Spoole. ‘Kavan is the least of my problems.’

Kavan

The attack was the culmination of Artemis’s hundred-year climb to supremacy on Shull. It was the greatest so far of Kavan’s career. And yet its beginning was strangely low-key.

The orders radiated out from Kavan’s position, they circled the iron walls, passed on from robot to robot. When the metal circuit was complete, the attack began.

Kavan formed two groups of infantry, two hundred yards apart, and set them firing on the robots between the first two moats. Copper and lead and cupronickel formed an almost solid wall in the air, it thumped into the earth of the mound, riddling the soil with metal.

The robots on the mound were trapped between the two groups of infantry that Karel had formed, and those groups now started to move towards each other, cutting down the robots opposite, riddling them with holes, piercing electromuscle, shattering plate, cutting through the wire of the mind.

‘Then you simply repeat the process all around the mound,’ said Goeppert, delighted. ‘Whoever commands that army has trapped their soldiers there with no means of support.’

‘I know,’ said Kavan. ‘And that worries me. Spoole is not a fool.’

Goeppert looked at the wall of robots who stood behind the two firing groups.

‘What are they for?’

‘To capture the metal that is fired back at us. It will lodge in their bodies, ready to be used again.’

The glow of portable forges could be seen, way back from the lines. Robots would be waiting there to melt down the metal reclaimed and recast it as minie balls and spitzer rounds that would be passed back, still warm, to the troops on the front line. Ada was back there too, directing the robots who were now at work on the wide platforms they would use to bridge the moats.

Kavan gazed at the two groups of infantry, shuffling towards each other as they fired. The night was lit with the flash of powder from the older guns, the spark of electromuscle suddenly punctured, the blue glow of a mind suddenly pierced, expending its life force in one flash.

‘It seems to me,’ he began, ‘that Spoole is trying to slow us down, not stop us completely. Why else would he build his fortifications in this manner?’

The defenders on the iron wall finally understood what was happening. They brought their cannon and mortars to bear on Kavan’s infantryrobots. A staccato tattoo travelled down the walls, and heavy canister rained down upon Kavan’s lines.

Clouds of dark chaff exploded amongst the troops, glittering silver as the scraps of foil caught the light of the battle. Kavan’s vision began to blink with interference.

‘The chaff is electrified,’ said Calor. ‘They’ll follow it up with iron filings next.’

More canisters rained down, and Kavan saw, through flickering vision, black lines drawn by the magnetized iron on the bodies of his and the other soldiers.

Engineers moved in, laying a magnetic perimeter to draw off the chaff, but the defenders switched to shrapnel bombs. Corkscrews of metal spun through the air, burrowing their way into bodies and limbs. A nearby robot froze, and the light in its eyes faded. It fell forward, to reveal the shaft of iron that pierced the back of its head.

‘Gather the metal!’ called Kavan. ‘Pull it back to the forges!’

No one heard him in the crackling confusion caused by the chaff, but his command was unnecessary. Already Scouts, frustrated by their lack of input to this kind of battle, were dashing back and forth, carrying what metal they could find. Even the long black tails of iron filings that followed them like whizz lines would be reclaimed.

The magnetic perimeter was in place. Already the air was getting clearer, as it pulled chaff and iron filings towards itself. A pattering, ringing noise started, and Kavan realized it had begun to rain.

‘Good,’ he called. ‘This will clear the air further!’

Now he could see the two firing groups once more. They had almost met up. Beyond them, on the section of the mound, nothing moved.

‘Some of them flung themselves into the far trench rather than be shot,’ said Calor, peering through the distorted air with her enhanced vision.

‘We’ll capture their metal later on,’ said Kavan. ‘Set up two groups again, this time four hundred feet apart. We’re clearing a path straight through here, right now.’

‘Very well, Kavan.’ She looked beyond the trenches. ‘Then there will only be the wall to pass.’

Was she being sarcastic? Kavan said nothing. Behind him he could hear Goeppert and the rest of the Borners checking over their bodies, ready for the ascent of the wall.

Susan and Spoole

Somewhere in the distance, the sky began to flicker.

‘The battle has begun,’ said Spoole. ‘Kavan has returned at last.’

‘Are you worried?’ asked Susan.

Spoole turned and gazed at her. He didn’t seem concerned. He turned back to the window.

‘We take conscripts too easily,’ he said. ‘These past years we have placed too high a value on expansion at all costs. We have forgotten Nyro’s way.’

He stared at the flickering in the night sky.

‘No, Susan, I’m not worried, at least not in the way you think. If Kavan were to lead this city, it would at least be according to Nyro’s way.’

The window was vast, squares of glass set in a metal frame. It curved at the edges, the top and bottom. Again Susan was struck by how Artemis could make such an austere statement of power and beauty, so totally different to those formerly made in Turing City.

Drops of rain began to streak the window. Other than their pattering on the glass, there was no sound.

The silence unnerved Susan.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘do you think Kavan will win through?’

‘No. Kavan will not win this time.’ He spoke the words with some sadness.

‘You’re not an infantryrobot, are you Susan?’ said Spoole suddenly. ‘I wonder what you are. I sent out messages asking for support days ago. I though I would have heard from the Storm Troopers at least. But nothing. Maybe Sandale and the rest have got to them. And then you turn up…’

He leaned closer, looking into her eyes.

‘What are you? Just another robot jumping on the best opportunity for safety? Well, you’re wasting your time coming to me! Go and see Sandale and the rest, if you want to be accepted as an Artemisian!’

‘I never claimed to be an Artemisian,’ said Susan angrily. ‘I was a Turing Citizen. Your state kidnapped me and had me brought here. Forced me to work in your making rooms.’

Her current surged. She could feel it filling her electromuscles, drawing them in. This body was getting ready to fight. She fumbled for the rifle she carried slung over her shoulder, pointed it towards Spoole. He didn’t seem to care.

‘Ah,’ he said, eyes glowing, ‘Now I understand! You are a mother of Artemis. That explains it. You don’t walk like a soldier. You’re too precise; you have a different sort of thoughtfulness. I was a soldier, I know these things. Who did you swap bodies with?’

‘Like you would know! You took my husband from me! You killed my son! Do you know that?’

‘I killed your son? I don’t think so.’

‘Maybe not directly, but your rusting state attacked mine.’

‘Yes. That’s what we do. And your state crumbled and ran away, rather than fighting. Just like you’re doing now.’

‘Not at all,’ said Susan with angry dignity. ‘I came here by choice. I’m looking for someone.’

‘Who?’

‘My friend.’

‘What about your husband? I thought you said I took him from you. I would have thought you wanted him back?’

‘He’s out there somewhere, on the other side of that wall. Tell me a way through and I’ll take it.’

‘What was your friend’s name?’

‘Nettie.’

‘Should I know her? Another mother of Artemis, I suppose?’

‘Nettie wasn’t a mother. Nettie never twisted a mind. She was our teacher.’

‘Your teacher?’ said Spoole, and his expression changed. ‘What sort of minds were you making?’

Susan moved her grip on the rifle. It felt odd and comfortable at the same time, made to fit this body.

‘New minds. Minds full of power, minds that barely thought.’

‘Ah, then I think I understand.’

He turned back to face the window.

‘Understand? Understand what?’

‘Susan, have you ever heard of the Book of Robots?’

Susan laughed bitterly.

‘Oh yes. It doesn’t exist. But the idea of it causes people to do things and weave minds that only bring misery.’ Of course Susan knew that. Her own mind had been woven that way.

‘I never believed it existed either, Susan, but lately I wonder. The Book of Robots is supposed to contain the plan of the original robots. It is supposed to have the template of the way that minds should be woven.’

‘I know that,’ said Susan. ‘I don’t see the need for the book. Any answers there are can be found by looking at the world around us.’

‘I think you’re right, Susan,’ said Spoole, delighted. ‘We live in this world and we take its form for granted. We don’t see what is right in front of us.’

His words were like a shock to her body. Spoole wasn’t the first person to tell her this. She remembered Maoco O, the Turing City Guard, how he had stood on the mound by the city fort beneath the light of the night moon and spoken almost exactly the same words to her.

It was just coincidence, she told herself.

‘I’ve heard that before,’ said Susan. ‘The trouble is, no one can ever tell me what the answers are. They don’t tell me what we are taking for granted.’

‘Oh, but I know,’ said Spoole. ‘I can tell you.’

Kavan’s troops had completely encircled the city. Now they moved to join the bulges that were growing at five positions around the encircling moats, getting ready to cross at the points cleared of enemy troops.

‘They can’t get out of there,’ said Kavan. ‘They’ve trapped themselves behind metal and earth.’

The first of the platforms constructed by Ada and her engineers had been dragged forward and used to bridge the first moat. Storm Troopers charged across and fanned out, left and right, pushing back the enemy troops marooned there by Spoole and the Generals.

They were followed by infantryrobots who went to the edge of the first mound to repeat the tactics Kavan had used earlier, firing into the enemy who were stranded between the next set of trenches.

More chaff and iron filings rained down, shrapnel and high-explosive canisters fell amongst the tightly packed troops, killing Artemis’ friends and foe alike. The air was filled with smoke and metal and rain, so full of motion that there was barely any untouched space there amongst the darkness. Silver Scouts cut through the confusion, pulling metal back to the growing number of forges glowing red on the Artemisian plain behind them.

Calor appeared, silver panelling badly scarred.

‘The troops marooned between the moats have pulled away, Kavan. They’re caught between our fire and that coming from the walls.’

‘Conscripts, the lot of them,’ said Kavan, and he looked around at his own, Uncertain Army. ‘How many of these are loyal, do you suppose?’

‘All of them, when things are going well,’ said Calor, and she gave a brittle laugh. ‘At the moment, about half of them.’

As she spoke, there was a huge explosion in the centre of the first bridge, splitting it in two. Twisted metal, shrapnel and robots tumbled into the moat. Already a second bridge was being pulled into position.

‘There are enough troops,’ said Kavan. ‘We will make it into the city. That is, if we need to. They know we are here. There will be robots in there who will be on our side.’

Susan and Spoole

‘What’s the difference between an animal and a robot, Susan?’ ‘A robot is made of metal, an animal is organic.’ ‘But what about the robot animals? We don’t think of them as being like us, do we? Think about beetles. They forage for scraps of metal with which to build their young. Think about snakes, wrapping themselves around small robots and killing them with a shock of current. Think about smaller robotic life forms. We lump them in with the organic animals, don’t we?’ ‘I suppose so. What point are you making?’ Spoole’s eyes flashed.

‘What’s the difference between us and a porphyry worm?’ ‘We’re intelligent, we have arms and legs…’ ‘And what else? Come on, you’re a mother of Artemis.’ Susan already knew the answer.

‘Only robots twist the minds of their young. Animals don’t, whether they are metal or organic.’

‘Haven’t you ever wondered why this should be?’ ‘No. It’s twisting minds that makes us intelligent.’

Spoole laughed. ‘That’s what I thought, at least until a few days ago. Tell me, what other differences are there, between us and animals? Organic animals, I mean.’

‘I don’t know. There wasn’t much organic life in Turing City. We kept the place clean.’

‘What do organic animals do that robots don’t?’

‘I don’t know. I’m not that interested in organics. It wasn’t twisted into my mind, I forget what I hear about them.’

‘They eat,’ said Spoole. ‘They eat each other.’

‘Well, we take metal from each other to build new robots.’

‘Yes, but organic animals need to eat each other to stay alive. They consume plants and animals for fuel. Didn’t you know that?’

‘I knew that. Is it important?’

‘It’s a clue, Susan. If the Book of Robots exists, then this should be written in there. Robots don’t eat, they don’t breathe. They’re not like animals, they’re not even like the machines that we make. Locomotives need fuel to propel themselves, fires need air to breathe or they fail to burn. Robots don’t. A mother weaves a mind, and there is sufficient power there to power a body for thirty or forty years!’

‘That’s the way that things work. Is there something wrong with that?’

‘Well, yes, apparently there is.’

The area before Kavan was filled with carnage, it was covered with smoke, it was watered by rain, it was lit by the flare of the guns on the wall that poured high explosive down on the advancing wall of robots, it was lit by the incandescence of minds discharging their life force into the night in one flash, it was rocked by explosions, it was distorted by chaff, it was pounded and twisted and thumped.

Beyond the line of attack, the night was strangely still. The glow of the forges on the plain, the area of quiet expectancy along the rest of the wall lent the scene before Kavan an air of the surreal.

Goeppert appeared at his side.

‘Not long now,’ said Kavan. ‘We’re almost at the wall. You realize you’ll be climbing under heavy fire all the way?’

‘We know that,’ said Goeppert. ‘We were twisted in the mountains, we’re used to fighting on vertical planes.’

‘You have sufficient weapons?’ asked Kavan, looking at the rifle and knives that Goeppert carried. ‘Would you like some grenades?’

‘No use on a wall,’ said Goeppert. ‘Don’t throw them far enough and they fall back towards you.’

A new noise rose above all the rest.

‘Machine guns,’ said Kavan. ‘Titanium-tipped bullets, I would guess. We must be almost there-’

And then there was a huge explosion, bigger than any they had heard so far. It didn’t come from the ground though…

‘Look,’ said Goeppert, pointing, ‘its magazine must have blown up.’

One of the guard towers built into the wall had erupted in flame. The long barrel of a gun appeared over the edge and began to slide slowly, slowly, downwards, slipping into the second moat. A tremendous cheer went up from the attackers, and for the first time that night, the Uncertain Army began to stamp on the ground.

Stamp, stamp, stamp; stamp, stamp, stamp.

A wide tear spread down from the top of the guard tower, the metal of the iron wall split apart by the force of the explosion.

‘It’s begun,’ said Kavan. ‘The soldiers in there know we are here. They know who I am, they’ll know what I represent. They’ll come back to Nyro.’

The gunfire from the top of the walls increased, only it was no longer all turned outwards. Now the city was fighting amongst itself. Just a tiny flame at the moment, but it would spread as it burned, Nyro’s fervour gradually overcoming the whole city.

Calor reappeared, her scratched panelling covered in drops of melted lead.

‘We’re there, Kavan,’ she said. ‘We’re at the walls. The defending troops are in dissarray. They are fired upon by their own side. They leap into the moat for safety.’

Goeppert stepped forward.

‘Then we are ready to attack. Kavan?’

‘Go,’ said Kavan.

He watched with Calor as Goeppert and his troops ran forward, their elongated bodies picking their way amongst the twisted wreckage of the battlefield.

‘And now we follow,’ said Kavan, and he followed the Borners as they made their way to the wall. Bullets rained down around him, they ricocheted from the bodies of the fallen. So many bodies, so many of them still alive. Kavan saw the glow of their eyes, heard the pleading of robots trapped in shorting bodies, waiting to be dragged away from the battlefield and to be rehoused in new machines. There would be time for that later.

Kavan’s feet rang on metal bodies. The smoke formed a roof above him through which the rain fell, the spark and crackle of the injured illuminated the enclosed scene.

Through a gap in the smoke, Kavan saw that Goeppert and his troops had reached the wall. The rest of the Uncertain Army watched as the Borners ran up to the base, placed their feet on the sheer surface, and then began to run upwards.

A cheer went up from the assembled troops; the Borners ran up the wall, they unslung their rifles, they began to fire on the few defenders who realized what was going on. Racing closer and closer to the top.

‘They’re almost in,’ said Kavan. ‘We’ve returned to Artemis.’

Susan and Spoole

‘We never even noticed, Susan! It wasn’t right in front of our eyes, it was right behind them! Our minds, Susan. The wire that a male produces has such power in it. Where does it come from?’

‘I don’t know. I’m not a male. I don’t understand what you do, any more than a male understands how a female twists metal!’

‘That’s not what I mean! You want to power a locomotive, you need to burn oil or diesel. You want to heat a forge, you burn coal. But to power a robot, all you have to do is twist a piece of metal. There is power there, it lasts for thirty or forty years, and then it is exhausted. Why is that?’

‘I told you, I don’t know. I’m not male!’

‘You can’t just twist the same piece of metal. Even males know that, don’t we? We’ve seen dead minds. The metal is brittle and lacking in something. You have to mix it with new metal to make a new mind.’

‘Which metals?’

‘That depends upon the mind, but iron and copper are the most important. And palladium and platinum, always a little palladium and platinum.’

The flashing lights beyond the window were building to a climax. Just on the edge of her hearing, Susan could hear the thump and shake of distant explosions.

‘So a mind does need to be refuelled. That would seem to make sense. After all, that’s what an animal does.’

‘Yes, but there is nothing like a robot mind, the efficiency with which it creates power! And we never even noticed! We built atomic bombs and nuclear trains, and we thought we were clever. We never realized that there is an engine like that running in our minds, a source of power produced purely by twisting metal. Imagine if we were to turn minds purely to the production of power? Imagine the energy that would create.’

Susan didn’t have to imagine it, she had already done it.

‘Is that was what was going on in the making rooms? Is that was why we were making those minds? But that’s…’ she struggled for the word, ‘… it’s obscene. It’s treating robots like, like animals, not like metal!’ A thought struck her. ‘Does this have something to do with Nettie? Is this why she vanished?’

‘I don’t know, it could be.’ said Spoole. ‘You still don’t understand, Susan. What might have happened to Nettie – that’s just the start!’

Susan walked away from the window, mind reeling. To see a mind as nothing more than a source of power. It was obvious when Spoole mentioned it. He was right, the answer had been behind their eyes all this time. Was that why no one had ever seen it before? Why had they seen it now?

The floor of the room was covered in a pattern of metal tiles, half of them polished to a shine, half roughened for traction. It was all steel, and yet some of the tiles reflected the light, and some of them were dull. She gazed at the pattern, thinking.

‘Maybe what you say is true,’ she said, eventually. ‘Maybe the Book of Robots does exist after all. Maybe this is written in it.’ She looked up suddenly. ‘It does, doesn’t it? You found the book! Artemis has found the book, and you, Spoole, have read it. That’s how you know, isn’t it?’

Spoole lowered his head.

‘No,’ he said, sadly. ‘I wish that were true. I wish that was the way that I found out.’

‘Then how?’ shouted Susan. ‘How did you figure this out? Which robot finally saw the truth?’

‘Ah,’ said Spoole. ‘If only a robot had done. You see, Susan, there are other minds at large on Penrose…’

Goeppert and his robots were in. The bullets and shells directed at the bridgehead of troops who crowded at the base of the iron wall were already reducing in number as the Borners went to work inside the city.

Calor suddenly began to laugh. Kavan was used to this, he almost expected it: Scouts pumped current around their bodies at a high frequency, they usually died young and half mad.

‘What is it, Calor?’ asked Kavan.

‘It’s Goeppert. I’ve just realized why he followed you here! The Borners have just taken your city!’

‘Not yet they haven’t,’ said Kavan.

‘But they’re in there, and you’re out here! What if they take it over and don’t let us in? That would be so funny!’

‘Go on Calor. Go and fetch Ada. I want her supervising the work here.’

‘It will take time, Kavan. She could be anywhere back there on the plain.’

‘Then fetch someone who knows what to do! She’ll find her way here, I’m sure.’

Engineers were bundled to the base of the wall. Standing on the bodies of the fallen, they began to supervise the stripping away of the iron, forcing a path through into the city. A huge explosion sounded to their left, and the second of the guard towers was blown apart.

‘Goeppert works well,’ said Kavan. ‘That, or more Artemisians are returning to our side.’

‘Kavan, what’s that?’

Calor tilted her head, listening. Now Kavan heard it too. A low drone, and under it a thumping noise.

‘It’s coming from behind us,’ said Kavan.

The other robots turned to see. There was nothing there. Somewhere beyond the noise and the gunfire they could just make out the glow of the forges and nothing else. The droning noise grew louder, the thumping became more insistent.

‘There’s something up there,’ said Calor, ‘shapes in the sky.’

‘Shapes?’ said Kavan. ‘What shapes?’

As he said it, golden flares ignited amongst the raindrops, they drew straight lines towards Kavan and his troops.

‘What are they?’ asked Calor.

‘Into the trenches!’ called Kavan

The golden lines streaked towards them and struck the ground between the first and second trench. Fountains of earth sprang from the resulting explosion.

Kavan and Calor tumbled down into the inside moat, landing on the gravelled bottom with a jolt that shook their metal frames. Something snapped in Kavan’s right arm, and he lost partial control over his hand.

‘Look!’ shouted Calor. She had landed on her feet, like any true Scout, and was pointing upwards. The top of the trench was a line in the sky, beyond it, something dark moved. A huge shape, lights blinking on its underside.

‘What is it?’ called Calor.

‘I don’t know!’ called Kavan. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it before!’

A second shape moved over the top of the trench. There were machines up there, huge flying machines that groaned and thumped the air. Where had they come from? Where they of Spoole’s invention? Surely not.

Golden flares streaked from one of the craft. One fell into the moat, a few hundred yards from where Kavan and Calor sheltered. It exploded in a wash of soil and sand that rattled on their damaged shells.

‘Go towards it!’ yelled Kavan, ‘See if it’s blown down the walls enough for us to get out of here.’

Calor ran awkwardly along the trench bottom. She had lost her usual light gait, her body was failing due to the damage it had taken.

Another craft flew by overhead, and more robots tumbled into the trench. An infantryrobot landed near Kavan. He heard the splintering crack that disabled her legs.

Calor was coming back.

‘Kavan!’ she called. ‘The last bomb blew out the walls clear to the next moat. We can make it through there.’

He followed her awkwardly down the trench. It was hard to move his right arm properly; his whole body was off balance.

The humming drone of the strange craft had increased. No, realized Kavan, it was rather that the noise of gunfire and shelling from the walls had lessened. The robots of the city wouldn’t want to open fire on their own craft.

He stumbled down the trench, cut through the gap in the walls to the next moat along. There were robots there already, clambering up the walls. Another huge explosion shook the ground behind Kavan, shaking the climbing robots free of their handholds.

‘They know we’re in the trench!’ called Calor. ‘They’re aiming for us down here!’

‘Good!’ called Kavan. ‘Their bombs will shatter the walls and make it easier for us to climb out!’

‘And if they hit us?’

‘Then we will die. We’re only metal.’

Kavan and Calor ran, the patterns of explosions reflecting in the rain water that flowed down their mud-spattered shells. Kavan and Calor and the rest of the robots, infantryrobots, Scouts, Storm Troopers, even some engineers, all seeking a way out of the confusion. All the while, those heavy craft droned and hovered somewhere above, sending down golden tongues of fire.

‘Here, Kavan, here!’ called Calor. She had found a sloping bank of earth, up which she led Kavan, both of them scrambling up into the night above. They emerged near one of the bridges that led away from the mounds onto the plain beyond.

Kavan turned for a moment and looked back towards the city. The gunfire there had almost ceased, bright yellow lights had been turned on to illuminate the walls. Before the walls, the dark craft hovered, sending down streaks of light that burst in golden fountains on the blackened ground. Fires leaped into the sky, fires fell from the night, and the battleground was picked out in bars of light.

‘What about Goeppert?’ asked Calor.

‘He’s on his own now,’ said Kavan. ‘We need to retreat and reassess.’

‘Retreat to where?’

‘Scatter across the plain,’ said Kavan. ‘It will make it harder for those craft to pick us off.’

‘What about Artemis City?’

‘It will still be here tomorrow. We need to understand what is happening!’

The command went out, and the Uncertain Army broke up into hundreds, thousands of little companies that scattered into the night.

A new sound fell out of the night, a piercing whistle that sang from high above. A second noise joined it.

‘What now?’ asked Kavan.

‘Two more craft,’ said Calor, gazing up into the night. ‘Small craft, I think. No. Or are they large craft, but further away?’

‘Never mind that,’ said Kavan, ‘look!’

The humming, droning machines were turning their attention away from the trenches and instead moving towards Kavan and the rest. They began to chase the robots across the plain, golden tongues of fire chasing them into the night.

Susan and Spoole

Spoole was ashamed. Susan could tell. He may not be part of what had happened, he may not have made the decision, but he was still ashamed.

‘Other minds?’ she said. Then she remembered what Nettie had told her, out by the radio masts. The creators had come. The writers of the Book of Robots had returned to Penrose. ‘Is it true?’ she asked. ‘Have our creators come?’

‘No!’ said Spoole. ‘No! They never claimed that. At least not at first. But they pick things up so quickly. They know how to manipulate people, how to win robots over. They know when to lie and flatter, and when to threaten and to tell the truth and when to just ignore the question. Oh, they’re clever.’

Susan gazed at him, a massive potential building inside her.

‘Is it true that they are animals?’ she asked.

‘Humans, they call themselves. Yes. It’s true.’

‘Have you seen them?’

‘No. Only heard their voices, and then I wasn’t supposed to. They’ve been speaking to the Generals these past two months using the radio. They kept it a secret from me for so long.’

‘I thought you were in charge!’

‘It doesn’t work that way, Susan. Not in Artemis. The humans have been speaking to the Generals, making promises, making deals. And the Generals have been listening. The humans have promised to defend the city in return for certain considerations.’

‘What considerations?’

‘Robots, Susan. The humans are clever, but they can’t work metal like we do. That’s how I know they didn’t write the book. Do you understand that? They don’t know enough about us.’

‘I understand.’

‘They want robots to come and work for them. They want us to weave them robots that they can take back to their homes as slaves.’

‘And the Generals agreed to this? They are willing to sell your children to animals?’

‘Why not, Susan? Children are nothing more than twisted metal. We all are.’

‘That’s only what you think!’ Susan shouted with frustration. ‘This state is riddled with rust from top to bottom!’

Spoole just smiled.

‘You’re part of this too, Susan. More than you know. You realize what else the humans want? Minds full of lifeforce that can’t think. The minds that your friend told you to make.’

‘Nettie!’ said Susan. ‘Then she knew?’

‘I don’t know. The Generals have been so good at concealing their actions. They know that the robots of the city will not see this as Nyro’s way.’

‘Well, surely it isn’t!’

‘Who knows? The Generals defend the city against attack; perhaps they believe they are defending it for Nyro’s sake.’

‘And do you think they are right?’

Spoole was silent.

‘I thought not.’

To Susan, master craftsrobot, sometimes the metal of a room would sing with the potential inherent within it. Sometimes it would appear as if it had achieved that potential. This room now seemed empty and devoid of purpose. Whatever life had once filled it was long gone. Spoole seemed to feel it too.

‘I can’t leave here,’ he said. ‘My mind was woven to lead Artemis. There is nowhere else for me to be.’

Much to her surprise, Susan understood Spoole. She had been woven to love her husband. Hers was an arranged marriage: it didn’t make it any less real.

‘Why are you still here, Susan.’

‘I told you. I came looking for my friend. I want to find out where she was taken.’

‘Why should I help you?’

‘You don’t believe in what the Generals are doing. And maybe Nettie knows something. Maybe she has spoken to the animals. You’re a leader, get to speak to them, maybe you can negotiate a different deal!’

‘That won’t work,’ said Spoole. ‘If you were a leader you would understand that. And yet…’

‘And yet what?’

‘Nothing. Your friend has probably been melted down and recycled to stop her telling what she knows.’

Spoole went back to the window. A high-pitched whistling impinged on the edge of Susan’s hearing.

‘Then the records will be in the next building. Help me find them.’

‘Why should I?’

Spoole just went on gazing out of the window. The flickering and percussive thump of the battle was still present, but overlaid on that was the descending noise of the whistling.

‘What is that?’ asked Susan.

‘I think that will be the humans,’ said Spoole. ‘The Generals said their ships were large. They’re dropping down from space. They’re coming to take their city.’

Kavan and the rest ran across the plain, kicking up sand and grit, dislodging the glowing coals from the overturned forges, tripping and stumbling on the bodies of the fallen. Behind them the thrumming craft still fired, only now they had changed ammunition: the shells exploded in a low circle, parallel to the ground. They sent out razor shards that sliced off legs just above the ankle, tumbling a robot forward into the secondary blast that ripped bodies and minds apart.

‘I think they’ve stopped following us!’ called Calor. She was running backwards, looking back at the city. ‘They seem to be maintaining a perimeter around the city.’

Kavan’s electromuscles were aching now. He needed to rest, give them a chance to cool a little, let the lifeforce replenish.

‘Should we stop?’ asked Calor, loping along at his side.

‘Not yet,’ said Kavan. ‘When day comes we’ll be exposed on this plain. Those craft will be able to pick us off at their leisure. We need to get well clear.’

‘Where are we going, Kavan? There is no shelter until we get to Stark! Or should we head north, back to the mountains?’

‘No. We need to spread out, make it harder for them to find us.’

‘Let’s stop here.’

Kavan was so tired.

‘Very well,’ he said. ‘Five minutes.’

They stopped. Kavan looked around. Ten of them. Himself and Calor, seven infantryrobots and one other Scout. All of them scratched and pierced by shrapnel.

‘We need a forge,’ said Kavan.

‘Look,’ said Calor. She pointed up into the sky over the city.

The piercing noise had been there all the time they had been running. Now they stopped they had time to notice it again. It shrieked through the metal, it set the inside of the head ringing. They watched the two dark shapes that descended through the rain clouds. They looked like rolls of hot lead, long tubes rolled in the hands by a child and then flattened.

‘That can’t be right,’ said Kavan. ‘My eyesight needs recalibrating.’

‘No,’ said Calor. ‘The larger craft is over nine hundred feet long. The smaller one is six hundred.’

‘What’s holding them up?’

‘I don’t know.’

What must it be like for the robots in the city, wondered Kavan? To look up and see those vast shapes hanging above. Expecting them to fall at any moment.

The front of the larger craft began to flicker, and the effect was taken up by the smaller.

All around the great plain, Kavan sensed the stillness as robots that had been running moments before came to a halt and turned to watch what was happening.

The two craft seemed to be speaking to each other using yellow, green and white lights. First the front of the larger craft would flicker, then the smaller craft flickered in reply. The conversation went on for a few moments, and then, in a series of shining bands, the lights spread backwards over the surface of the two craft, now joined by red, orange and yellow, the glowing pattern gradually encompassing the whole extent of the two ships.

The lights increased in intensity, their brightness lighting up the plain, sending dark shadows streaming out behind the watching robots.

Kavan saw the way that Calor looked at them, her shell reflecting the patterns, and he realized something. The craft were big and they were bright, and though they were much smaller than the city, they seemed to dwarf it. Whoever was flying those craft, it seemed to Kavan, was sending out a message.

We are here. And we are in control.

Susan and Spoole stood by the window, gazing up at the enormous craft that floated overhead. The room was illuminated in red and green, the patterns of light played across the chequered floor.

‘It’s bigger than the Basilica,’ said Spoole. ‘What have the Generals done?’

‘Made peace with a bigger bully,’ said Susan. ‘You were right, Spoole. It’s too late to fight these people. The other Generals have outmanoeuvred you.’

‘You’re giving up so easily?’

‘It makes no difference to me,’ said Susan. ‘I don’t care who’s oppressing me.’

‘You don’t mean that,’ said Spoole.

‘Spoole, I don’t care. Welcome to my forge. Welcome to the world I have lived in since you and your Choarh state destroyed mine.’

Spoole couldn’t take his eyes from the vast shape hanging overhead. Every surface in the room danced to the movement of its lights.

‘Maybe the Generals were right,’ he said, softly. ‘What else could they do?’

‘I think they were right,’ said Susan, and a vicious pleasure welled up inside her. ‘What does that say about Nyro, Spoole?’

Spoole didn’t answer.

‘She’s dead, Spoole!’ Susan couldn’t keep the savage joy from her voice. All the suffering she had endured, now was the time she could pay some of it back. ‘Nyro has gone, Spoole. If not now, then in a few days or a few weeks. The Generals have given the city away to a greater power, and from now on you’ll be playing by its rules!’

She laughed.

Spoole turned and looked at her, and his eyes were bright.

‘What now, Spoole? What will you do now?’

He didn’t reply, he raised his hands slightly, as if he was going to attack her. She didn’t care. She was having her revenge.

‘Well, Spoole? What now that Nyro has gone?’

He lowered his hands.

‘What now?’ he repeated. ‘Susan, you’re right. Nyro has no place in this city any more. This is not the place I was made to lead. I’m free to go.’

The vicious smile faded from Susan’s face as he spoke.

‘Yes,’ said Spoole. ‘Free to go.’

‘No,’ said Susan, disappointed to be cheated this easily of her revenge, poor though it was. ‘No you’re not. Stay here, Spoole. Stay here and see how pointless it all is. Everything that you fought for, everything that you did to me and my family. All for nothing.’

But all the doubt had gone from Spoole. He was his old self again, calm and assured.

‘Would that make you happy? Don’t be so silly Susan. No. We need to go now. Both of us.’

‘Both of us? But why should I come with you?’

‘Because this is wrong. The Generals are wrong. You asked me for help not two minutes ago. Well, I’m offering it. Come on, we’re going to find out what happened to your friend. And then, maybe, we will have some proof of what it is that the Generals have done. We’re going to show Artemis City that this is not Nyro’s way.’

The dark surface of Lake Ochoa was flecked red with burning mirrors of the rising sun. Wa-Ka-Mo-Do and the robots ran along its shore, metal feet slipping on the pebbles, kicking them, sending them dancing across the water. To their left a railway train burned: long tanker wagons were torn apart; they belched black diesel smoke into the sky. Wa-Ka-Mo-Do saw the line of bullet holes down the side of them. Those wouldn’t have caused an explosion, he reflected. Those strange craft must have also been firing incendiaries.

Past the burning train, metal moving to a steady pulse, they turned from the lake shore and headed to the City Gate, clearly visible before them now, wide open and guarded by four humans wearing green panelling. They carried rifles, but not like the ones Wa-Ka-Mo-Do had seen before. These weapons were shorter and constructed mainly of plastic. What little metal there was, was of an odd alloy that felt strangely transparent to Wa-Ka-Mo-Do’s senses. Those guns made him feel uncomfortable. They were different – alien. Just like the humans.

Their attitude and demeanour had changed since yesterday, he noted.

The running troop slowed to a halt, Wa-Ka-Mo-Do coming to attention before one of the humans.

‘Thank you for your service here today,’ he said. ‘May I respectfully ask, where is the Imperial Guard?’

The human made an odd motion, and Wa-Ka-Mo-Do realized he wasn’t wearing a translation device.

‘Come on,’ he called, and stepped forward. The humans stood to one side, allowing him to pass, and Wa-Ka-Mo-Do headed into the city, his troops marching along behind him. Inside his gyros were spinning. What would he have done if the humans had tried to prevent him from entering Sangrel?

The Street of Becoming was littered with broken tiles and rubble. Bullet holes stitched the upper parts of the buildings. Dark cracks spread across their walls, and a fine sprinkling of dust fell on the robots.

There were four more humans guarding the top gates of the Street of Becoming, each of them holding the same strange new weapons as those at the bottom. Behind them, Wa-Ka-Mo-Do noted with some relief, were ten warriors of the Emperor’s Army. La-Ver-Di-Arussah stood at their head.

‘Honoured Commander,’ she said. There was a scratch on her brightly polished body.

‘La-Ver-Di-Arussah, there are humans guarding the entrance to the Emperor’s city of Sangrel. Did you not, perhaps, feel this to be an insult to his name?’

‘These are the Emperor’s orders, Honoured Commander,’ replied La-Ver-Di-Arussah coolly.

I don’t believe you! The words died in Wa-Ka-Mo-Do’s voicebox. It seemed that things had gone so wrong here in Sangrel she probably was telling the truth.

‘How badly damaged is the city?’ he asked.

‘The flying craft fired missiles that hit the Emperor’s Palace. Several humans died. Furthermore, they have destroyed some of the buildings that the humans erected by the lake.’

‘What about robots? How many citizens are dead?’

‘We haven’t yet had the time to find that out. The Emperor instructs us that the humans must be assisted first.’

‘Surely you questioned these orders?’

‘One does not question the Emperor, Wa-Ka-Mo-Do. We are to secure a passage way from Smithy Square to the Gate of Becoming to allow the humans to bring in new equipment.’

‘No! I don’t believe it! How do you know this is what the Emperor wishes?’

‘His orders were relayed here by radio not one hour ago.’

Did he believe her? He didn’t know.

Wa-Ka-Mo-Do looked down at his hands. His body was covered in grime, a thin patina of dust from the human crops. He felt dirty and disconnected from this city. Nothing seemed to be making sense.

‘La-Ver-Di-Arussah. Think on this: there was already tension in this city before the attack. Imagine the feelings of the citizens now! If we go out and are seen helping to rebuild some of the damage caused by the human craft we may calm things a little.’

‘It is not our job to calm things. The Emperor wishes any rebellion to be quashed in the most brutal manner possible, as an example to other cities.’

She was smiling as she spoke. The gar was actually smiling. ‘After all,’ she added, ‘the Emperor has many more robots. He doesn’t have that many humans.’

‘He has no humans! The humans have him!’

Seldom had the silence of robots been so deep. La-Ver-Di-Arussah’s troops stared forward blankly.

‘Surely, if you must speak treason, it would be better away from the troops?’

‘Where’s Ka-Lo-Re-Harballah?’ demanded Wa-Ka-Mo-Do.

‘Up in Smithy Square, helping the humans.’

‘I’m going up there.’

‘Take your squad with you, Wa-Ka-Mo-Do. You will need them to protect you from the robots of Sangrel. They’re angry.’

‘Was that a deliberate insult, La-Ver-Di-Arussah?’

Her smile widened.

‘No. Only advice.’

Wa-Ka-Mo-Do set off alone. He looked through the entrance to the Copper Market, and saw that the stalls in there were still open. The place was a lot emptier than usual, it was true, but there were still robots selling metal and oil and coal. It made sense, he supposed, robots would need materials with which to repair themselves.

He continued up the hill. Where was everyone else, he wondered? He feared he knew the answer. In houses and buildings, in the caves at the back of the Copper Market, stoking up the fire of their grievances.

There were two peasants up ahead, raking the rubble from the street.

‘What happened here?’ he demanded.

‘Silversmith’s house got hit, Honoured Commander.’

They looked at the ruptured wall of the nearby building. Melted silver droplets were spattered across the road and the rubble.

‘Was anyone hurt?’

‘Silversmith’s family were all killed. Melted.’

‘Melted?’

‘We don’t understand it, Honoured Commander. Whatever hit that building sent a jet of liquid metal into it. The family’s minds burned like flares. If you go in there you can see their bodies welded to each other, the whole family turned into one lump.’

Wa-Ka-Mo-Do examined the ground. Mixed among the rubble were droplets of iron and aluminium.

‘What are you doing now?’

‘Clearing a path for the humans. There is a transport craft coming. They will need to bring their own weapons up into the city if they are to defend themselves from further attacks.’

‘What about defending us?’ asked Wa-Ka-Mo-Do

‘Honoured Commander?’

They didn’t understand. Wa-Ka-Mo-Do was already gone, heading up the hill. If the humans wanted to inflame the robots of the city to rebellion, they couldn’t go a better way about it.

It wasn’t until later on it occurred to him that that may have been their plan.

Finally, he reached Smithy Square, and he felt as if the current had drained from his spongy-feeling electromuscles.

The rising sun had bitten through the roof of the Emperor’s Palace.

At least that’s how it seemed. Half the roof was gone. Blue tiles hung broken from the torn edges, aluminium was burned to white oxide. The red sun cast a rusted, decaying light over the scene.

‘It’s still burning inside,’ said Ka-Lo-Re-Harballah, appearing at Wa-Ka-Mo-Do’s side. ‘The humans won’t let us in to help extinguish it. They say they have the situation under control.’

Wa-Ka-Mo-Do looked at the thin black smoke curling into the air through the broken roof. He imagined the ballroom burning, the ancient engravings warping in the heat, the paint flaking from metal.

‘No,’ said Wa-Ka-Mo-Do, ‘we go in now, and rust the humans. Get me six robots.’

Ka-Lo-Re-Harballah didn’t move.

‘Did you hear me, Ka-Lo-Re-Harballah?’

‘I’m sorry, Honoured Commander. The Emperor says that we are to obey the humans.’

‘How do you know that, Ka-Lo-Re-Harballah?’ flared Wa-Ka-Mo-Do. ‘How do you KNOW that?’

‘The Vestal Virgins commanded it, in his name.’

‘You’ve seen them?’

‘La-Ver-Di-Arussah did. Honoured Commander, you must be aware that she is part Vestal Virgin herself. Her family is known to have connections to that line.’

‘There is no Vestal Virgin lineage, how could there be?’

Ka-Lo-Re-Harballah did not answer. He was staring shamefully at the ground.

‘Am I alone?’ wondered Wa-Ka-Mo-Do aloud.

Still Ka-Lo-Re-Harballah was silent. Wa-Ka-Mo-Do looked around. The Copper Master’s house stood across the square, seemingly undamaged.

‘Is the radio room untouched?’ wondered Wa-Ka-Mo-Do, an idea forming in his mind.

‘Yes, Honoured Commander.’

Wa-Ka-Mo-Do came to a decision.

‘Good. I’m going to contact the Emperor. I will make him aware of what’s going on here.’

‘Honoured Commander, the Vestal Virgins were quite explicit. So La-Ver-Di-Arussah said. You are to aid the humans in every respect.’

‘And that I shall, Ka-Lo-Re-Harballah, once I have spoken to the Emperor.’

Ka-Lo-Re-Harballah looked horrified. ‘Honoured Commander, are you suggesting that the Emperor is ignorant of events?’

‘I am not suggesting anything. Look, I am to aid the humans, am I not? Why don’t you go and let them know that I would be pleased to speak to their ambassador at his earliest convenience?’

‘But Honoured Commander-’

‘Thank you, Ka-Lo-Re-Harballah.’

Before Ka-Lo-Re-Harballah could speak again, Wa-Ka-Mo-Do turned and strode across the square, heading for the Copper Master’s house. It glowed red in the morning sun, and Wa-Ka-Mo-Do felt as if he was stepping directly into the forge.

The Copper Guard by the door stood to attention as he entered the building. He strode past into the hallway.

A polished robot hurried up to meet him.

‘Honoured Commander, allow me to escort you to your quarters.’

‘Take me to the radio room, Lo-Kel-Gollu.’

‘Honoured Commander, the Vestal Virgins left specific instructions-’

‘The Vestal Virgins do not command this city.’

‘Honoured Commander…’

Ignoring the robot’s cries, Wa-Ka-Mo-Do strode through the building towards the radio room.

What was going on here, he wondered. Why didn’t they want him to know what was going on?

‘Honoured Commander!’

‘Not another word! Go back to your post!’

He mounted the green cast-iron stairs that led up to the radio room, the sound of his feet echoing from the tiled walls.

There was another guard waiting outside the radio room, his sword drawn.

‘Cho-Lee.’

‘Honoured Commander, the Vestal Virgins have ordered that you should not enter here.’

Wa-Ka-Mo-Do looked the guard up and down. He was a big man, buzzing with lifeforce.

‘Let me pass.’

The robot raised his sword a little, but his voice buzzed with emotion.

‘I’m sorry, Honoured Commander. Shame lies at the end of whichever path I take. Please turn around now, that I may not fight you.’

‘Cho-Lee, I must enter the radio room. You’ve seen what’s happening outside. This is not right.’

‘Honoured Commander, please. Leave, or if you must stay, draw your sword that we may fight as equals.’

Cho-Lee had a well-made body, reflected Wa-Ka-Mo-Do. Polished and humming with energy. He was a good fighter.

‘Cho-Lee, please remember, I am one of the Eleven. Step aside and allow me to pass. This is the order of the Commander of Sangrel, the ultimate authority in this city.’

Cho-Lee looked down at the smaller robot.

‘You are in charge, Honoured Commander?’

‘Of course I am.’ Wa-Ka-Mo-Do saw Cho-Lee’s expression clear. ‘You know that, Cho-Lee.’

Cho-Lee lowered his sword.

‘Then I apologize for my actions.’

‘Apology accepted. You serve in good faith Cho-Lee. Now, I have new orders for you. No one is to pass these doors while I am in this room. Do you understand, Cho-Lee?’

‘I understand, Honoured Commander.’

The guard drew to one side, and Wa-Ka-Mo-Do pushed open the iron door.

He entered the radio room.

Karel

Karel and Melt were walking south into the summer. The grass was changing, little yellow and white faces emerged from amongst the green stalks. They watched them as they passed by.

‘The mountains look so beautiful in the sun,’ said Karel, deliberately ignoring the organic life.

Melt said nothing. Never the most talkative of robots, he spoke even less as they approached the central mountain range. Karel guessed he was exhausted by his travels. Despite her madness, Levine had done a good job of scraping away metal in that mine up near the village of Klimt, but he was still too big and heavy. Melt had walked nearly five hundred miles. Karel doubted he himself could walk one mile in that heavy body.

‘I last saw these mountains when I was driving a train,’ he continued, pleased by the sterility of the stone ahead. It would be so good to leave behind the feel of soil beneath his feet. ‘Artemis placed my mind inside a locomotive, you know. I could only see straight ahead. It was winter then…’

‘It will be winter somewhere now,’ said Melt. ‘Down in the real south, below the equator. Everything balances out in this world. When summer approaches in the north, winter approaches in the south. When there is happiness in the spring, there is sorrow in autumn.’

Karel was intrigued. Melt rarely admitted to anything.

‘Does it?’ asked Karel. ‘Do you really believe that?’

‘I wish it were true,’ said Melt, sadly.

Karel waited, wondering if Melt would add anything else. Nothing.

‘Have you been to the real south?’ asked Karel. ‘Have you been below the equator?’

‘There’s been fighting ahead,’ said Melt. ‘Look.’

They saw the scars in the ground ahead, ragged gashes of earth amongst the green grass.

‘Kavan,’ said Karel. Their journey to Artemis City was along a path of rumour built on the words exchanged with robots heading north. Those deserters from Spoole’s and Kavan’s armies had told them of this battle, warned them of the destruction, the unexploded shells, the booby traps. Karel and Melt had tried to keep their own company, but more then once they had found themselves hiding with other robots, watching the newly formed militias and bandits that now stamped and bullied their way across the land. Those other lone robots had told them of the little armies and forces that had set up camp in the mountains, each ruling and fighting over their own tiny territories.

Now they were almost there.

‘This must be where Spoole and Kavan faced off, here at the edge of the mountains,’ said Karel, looking up at the distant ledges. They would make a good place to set guns.

‘The road beyond here will be booby trapped,’ said Melt. ‘That’s what I would have done, if I were Spoole, fleeing the battlefield.’

‘And you were a soldier,’ said Karel. ‘So what should we do now, then?’

‘We should leave this path. There are still bodies ahead. So much metal will attract attention, especially in these empty lands.’

Indeed, there was movement in the distance. Peering ahead, between the flanks of the mountains, they saw robots moving about.

‘Why would they bother us, when there is so much metal freely available?’

‘Probably they wouldn’t. But they could capture us, enslave us.’

‘Then we’ll have to fight them. This path is the only one that I know of through these mountains.’

They walked on. Into the battlefield proper. The ground here was torn apart, the earth and vegetation and stones mixed together in an uneven mush. Metal was strewn everywhere. Broken, abandoned. Parts of bodies, some of them covered in a light patina of rust.

‘There must have been so much easy salvage,’ said Melt.

‘These pieces will go too,’ said Karel. ‘These mountains were full of little tribes and kingdoms. They’ll all come creeping back now that Artemis has withdrawn.’

On and on they walked, approaching the pass. They joined the course of a set of railway lines, stepping from sleeper to sleeper.

There was a robot standing in the middle of the tracks. He stood, waiting for them as they approached.

‘Hello,’ he said. ‘My name is Simrock. Which way shall I go?’

‘Whichever way you like,’ said Melt, making to push his way past. Simrock held out his arms.

‘I don’t know which way I like.’

‘You’re Spontaneous, aren’t you?’ said Karel. ‘Where did you come from?’

‘From the mountains. I walked up from the depths, following the paths of those who had gone before me.’

‘Spontaneous?’ said Melt. He seemed angry. ‘There is no such thing!’

‘Of course there is,’ said Karel, puzzled at the big robot’s reaction. ‘I used to work with them, back in Turing City. I was an immigration officer…’

Simrock’s eyes glowed.

‘Turing City,’ he said. ‘Yes. I know about Turing City.’

‘Then you have taken a long time coming to the surface. Turing City was destroyed by Artemis five months ago.’

‘He’s a liar,’ said Melt. ‘How could he know about Turing City, if he was formed deep down?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Karel. ‘They just do. Melt, what is the matter? I’ve never seen you so angry.’

It was true. The leaden man had clenched his fists, such was the power running through him.

‘Nothing. I’m okay. I’m fine.’

‘Very well,’ said Karel, doubtfully. He turned to the other robot. ‘What do you do, Simrock? What’s your purpose?’

‘What do I do? I look for the body of Nicolas the Coward. It will be useful in these times.’

‘Nicolas the Coward was just a story,’ said Karel. ‘If he ever did wear an adamantium body, then it would have been found long ago. Anyway, how did he swap his mind from one body to another without any help?’

Simrock tilted his head. ‘There was more than one person there, obviously. When Nicolas’s wife wove the story into their child, she altered the details.’

Melt tugged at Karel’s arm.

‘Why are we wasting our time with this robot? Come on, your wife is waiting for you.’

‘Hold on, Melt. What’s the matter with you?’

‘I told you, nothing!’

‘I don’t believe you.’

‘Then don’t. But why waste your time with this robot?’

‘Maybe we can help each other. Simrock, do you know a way through the mountains?’

‘He doesn’t even know where he is!’

‘No, he doesn’t know which way to go. There’s a difference. Where are you now, Simrock?’

‘Just north of the central mountain range.’

‘Apart from this road, do you know another way through the mountains?’

‘I don’t know this road. I only know the Northern Road.’

‘Would you take us to it?’

‘I will. Perhaps Nicolas the Coward will be there.’

Karel didn’t bother to disagree. You couldn’t change the way a robot’s mind was twisted.

And after all, who was to say what was the right way to twist a mind?

Wa-Ka-Mo-Do

The floor, walls and ceiling of the radio room were covered in blue and white tiles that reflected the sound and made listening to transmissions harder than necessary. But this was the room of the Nine Virgins, built by the original Copper Master, and the paintings upon those white tiles must be preserved.

Two desks sat in the middle of the room, the focus of a tangle of wires and cables plugged into the piled black transceiving equipment that stood in marked contrast to the rest of the room. Two robots were on duty, they stood up as they realized Wa-Ka-Mo-Do had entered the room, pulling jacks from their heads as they did so.

‘Honoured Commander, you should not be here…’ The robot who spoke had the sign of the knot embossed on his shoulder, signifying he was one of the family of La-Ver-Di-Arussah. He was dressed almost entirely in copper in order to reduce sparks and possible interference.

‘I am the commander of Sangrel, and I have decided to enter here,’ said Wa-Ka-Mo-Do. ‘I wish to speak to the Emperor himself. Arrange it immediately.’

The two robots exchanged looks.

‘Honoured Commander,’ said the second robot. ‘The Emperor is not a servant to be summoned so…’

‘The Emperor’s city of Sangrel was attacked by humans last night. Are you suggesting that the Emperor would not wish to make his Honoured Commander aware of his feelings on this matter?’

‘No, Honoured Commander. But we have been in contact with the Silent City earlier this morning and they made no attempt-’

‘I believe I gave an order?’

Again the two robots looked at each other, then the second of them sat down and plugged a jack directly into his head. He reached out to one of the transceivers before him and turned a dial slowly around.

‘This is four oh one Sangrel calling oh one one Silence.’

‘Receiving you, Sangrel.’

‘Silence, Wa-Ka-Mo-Do, of Ko of the state of Ekrano in the High Spires, Commander of the Emperor’s Army of Sangrel, requests an audience with the Emperor.’

‘We will consult the Emperor’s Secretary immediately. Tell the Honoured Commander he will be notified of his audience within the next few weeks.’

The radio robot turned to face Wa-Ka-Mo-Do, but the light of satisfaction in his eyes faded on seeing his commander’s expression.

‘I want to speak to the Emperor immediately,’ said Wa-Ka-Mo-Do. ‘On the radio.’

The poor robot looked terrified as he swung back to face the equipment.

‘I’m sorry, Silence. The Honoured Commander insists that he speak to the Emperor immediately.’

There was a pause, and Wa-Ka-Mo-Do could imagine the consternation at the other end of the line. He could see the current surging through the radio operator’s body.

‘Sangrel, your commander is displaying a remarkable lack of understanding of the protocols of court. We suggest you relay this to him.’

‘There is no need!’ wailed the terrified man. ‘He is standing beside me now!’

Another prolonged silence followed. Wa-Ka-Mo-Do looked at the second operator.

‘What’s your name?’ he asked.

‘Li-Kallalla, Honoured Commander.’

‘And I am Go-Ver-Dosai,’ said the one who bore the knot insignia. Wa-Ka-Mo-Do ignored him as the voice on the radio said:

‘Sangrel, this is Silence. Your commander is indeed honoured amongst robots. Prepare to receive a message dictated by the Emperor himself, as relayed by the Silver Guard.’

Li-Kallalla looked around in astonishment.

‘Such a thing has never happened in the past, Honoured Commander.’

Wa-Ka-Mo-Do lowered his head and waited for the response, doing his best to appear dignified, but all the time feeling waves of relief surging through his body. At last the Emperor had been made aware of the situation. At last he understood what was happening to the robots of Sangrel.

The radio crackled, and a voice spoke.

‘Wa-Ka-Mo-Do, of Ko of the state of Ekrano in the High Spires, Commander of the Emperor’s Army of Sangrel. Hear the words of the Emperor, dictated to his servant.’

Out of respect, the two radio operators stood to attention. Wa-Ka-Mo-Do found himself doing the same.

‘The Emperor wishes it to be known that the situation in Sangrel is in harmony with his wishes. Wa-Ka-Mo-Do, his commander of the army of Sangrel, is to continue in his duties, and to offer all support to the humans that the Emperor has been pleased to welcome within his province. The wishes of the humans are paramount, and the Emperor would not wish himself to be disgraced in the eyes of his guests by being seen to place the needs of his subjects above those that he has welcomed into his lands.’

Rank and roles were forgotten for just a moment as Wa-Ka-Mo-Do and the two radio robots looked at one another.

‘To be specific, the Emperor wishes his commander to understand that he is to place himself under the command of the Emperor’s guests and to aid them in any way they request. Any actions otherwise would be deemed treachery to the Emperor. Is this understood?’

The two radio robots gazed at Wa-Ka-Mo-Do, who remained motionless, staring at the black mouth of the speaker.

‘I repeat, Sangrel, is this understood? We wish to hear this from the mouth of the commander himself.’

Li-Kallalla flicked a switch and looked up at Wa-Ka-Mo-Do.

‘Is this understood, Commander?’

Wa-Ka-Mo-Do felt the current building in his electromuscles.

‘Is this understood?’

‘Yes,’ said Wa-Ka-Mo-Do. ‘I understand.’

‘Very well. Continue with your duty, Honoured Commander. Silence out.’

Li-Kallalla flicked some more switches, and then turned back to gaze at Wa-Ka-Mo-Do.

‘Do you have any more orders, Honoured Commander?’

Wa-Ka-Mo-Do was lost in thought.

‘Honoured Commander?’

‘What is going on?’ said Wa-Ka-Mo-Do. ‘What is going on, Li-Kallalla?’

‘I do not know, Honoured Commander.’

The two robots were nervous and embarrassed by Wa-Ka-Mo-Do’s behaviour. No wonder. He was addressing them as equals. He couldn’t help it.

‘If we follow the Emperor’s commands then the robots of this city will all be killed,’ he said.

‘If those are the Emperor’s wishes…’ began Go-Ver-Dosai.

‘Don’t you understand, their deaths would be my responsibility.’

‘Honoured Commander! Please do not touch me!’

Wa-Ka-Mo-Do realized he had seized Go-Ver-Dosai’s arm. Slowly, he let go.

‘The only thing protecting the humans at the moment is my troops! If I pull them back the humans would be wiped out and peace and harmony would return to Sangrel.’

‘Such talk is treachery!’ Go-Ver-Dosai was horrified. ‘You heard the Emperor!’

‘I know. I know.’ He turned to Li-Kallalla. The younger robot was nervous, trapped between two superiors. ‘What do you think is going on?’ he asked.

‘I don’t know, Honoured Commander,’ burbled the young robot, his voicebox slipping out of phase. ‘I wouldn’t presume to understand the mind of the Emperor.’

‘No. Nor would I. And yet perhaps it is the minds of the humans we should understand. They appear to be the new rulers of San-grel.’

‘More treachery! The Emperor rules all of Yukawa!’

‘Be silent, Go-Ver-Dosai! I am one of the Eleven!’

‘The Eleven are subservient to the Emperor. Or are the stories true? Do you subscribe to some higher power? The heresy of the Book of Robots runs throughout the High Spires.’

‘I subscribe to the truth, Go-Ver-Dosai. And we are not seeing the truth at the moment, I know it. Li-Kallalla. Tell me, where else are there humans on Yukawa? You operate the radio. You must know.’

‘He doesn’t know, Honoured Commander,’ said Go-Ver-Dosai firmly. ‘We do not speak of anything but what we are directed to.’

‘I am directing Li-Kallalla to speak. You will be silent.’

The young robot looked from one superior to the other, terrified.

‘I don’t know for sure, Commander. But…’ he hesitated.

‘Yes, Li-Kallalla?’

‘Well, there were said to be humans in Ell.’

‘That is classified information, Li-Kallalla!’

‘Go-Ver-Dosai, you will be silent! Li-Kallalla, I am your superior. Nothing you know is classified from me!’

Wa-Ka-Mo-Do felt the current begin to surge once more. Ell again. The robots of the city had written that name as graffiti. What was happening in Ell?

‘You imply that there are no longer humans in Ell?’ he said, carefully.

Li-Kallalla lowered his gaze.

‘Well, Honoured Commander, no one is quite sure what is happening in Ell. They no longer speak on the radio, they are no longer mentioned at all in any of the official reports-’

‘Li-Kallalla, be quiet!’

In one fluid movement, Wa-Ka-Mo-Do drew his sword and brought the point up beneath the chin of Go-Ver-Dosai. ‘I am the commander of this city,’ he said. ‘This is the last time I will mention this. I will instruct my troops what to do.’

‘We are not your troops!’ said Go-Ver-Dosai.

‘Then you are but a civilian, and will follow my orders or die. Li-Kallalla, go on. What do you know of Ell?’

‘Nothing. Only that on the day before you arrived there was a blast of static across the radio frequencies that burned out half the equipment here. It came from the direction of Ell.’

Wa-Ka-Mo-Do thought for a moment.

‘How strong a blast?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Strong enough to kill a robot?’

‘I don’t know.’

Wa-Ka-Mo-Do slowly lowered his sword.

‘I don’t like this,’ he said. ‘I don’t like this at all. Who are we to trust?’

‘Trust your Emperor!’ said Go-Ver-Dosai.

‘I’m not sure I do,’ said Wa-Ka-Mo-Do. ‘I no longer believe he is the true power here in Yukawa. And even if he were, then is it right that we should follow a man who would sanction the death of so many of his own people?’

‘Hah! You are not of the high born, are you?’ challenged Go-Ver-Dosai. ‘If you were, you would not ask such questions!’

‘Silence,’ said Wa-Ka-Mo-Do, raising his sword once more.

‘I will not be silent in the face of such treason, Honoured Commander. Your duty is clear. You heard the words of the Emperor himself.’

‘I heard the voice of one claiming to speak for the Emperor.’

‘So what? Since when does a low-born robot have the right to question the Emperor?’

‘Since the Emperor proved he was not worthy of command. I will not place myself in the service of these humans!’

‘Then you are a traitor!’

‘Maybe I am!’

And as he spoke the words he felt the great drain on his current, which had sucked his energy these past few days, finally disconnect. Wa-Ka-Mo-Do felt as if he had cleaned the rust from his mind. He felt as if he was thinking clearly at last.

‘Maybe I am a traitor,’ he repeated. ‘But at last I am doing what is right! There will be no robots left in this city unless I act!’

‘They will send orders to have you relieved of your command!’

That silenced Wa-Ka-Mo-Do. Go-Ver-Dosai was right. What was he to do?

He looked at the radio equipment, and an idea dawned upon him. It was a terrifying thought, but he was already a traitor.

‘Destroy the radio equipment,’ he said.

‘No!’ That was Li-Kallalla. ‘Honoured Commander, please, no!’

‘We have no choice, Li-Kallalla. Destroy it.’

Go-Ver-Dosai stepped forward.

‘I will not allow this.’

Wa-Ka-Mo-Do brought his sword up once more. Go-Ver-Dosai laughed.

‘You are indeed without grace. You challenge me when I am unarmed?’

‘Then you take my sword, Go-Ver-Dosai,’ said Wa-Ka-Mo-Do, handing it over. As the other robot took it, Wa-Ka-Mo-Do pushed his arm, thrusting the sword into one of the amplifiers. White sparks crackled. Go-Ver-Dosai lashed back with one foot, but Wa-Ka-Mo-Do dodged easily.

Go-Ver-Dosai paused, getting the balance of the sword.

‘No grace!’ he scoffed. ‘The fight had not even begun. And will you help me, Li-Kallalla? Or will you see the radio destroyed?’

‘I don’t know,’ the young robot said, miserably.

Wa-Ka-Mo-Do reached out and pushed a stack of equipment to the floor. They heard the valves inside popping.

Go-Ver-Dosai laughed.

‘And how long do you think it will take to rebuild that? A day at most!’

‘A day may be all we have,’ said Wa-Ka-Mo-Do, and he lunged as Go-Ver-Dosai thrust the sword at him, made to grab the robot’s hand, was surprised as the sword was whipped around to drag a long scratch across the scarlet metal of his arm. Wa-Ka-Mo-Do sprang to the side, took hold of Go-Ver-Dosai’s wrist and pulled him forward, sending him tumbling over the broken equipment that lay on the floor.

‘You are not without skill, Go-Ver-Dosai, but I am clearly your superior.’

‘Maybe so. But I will retain my honour. Can you say the same?’

‘Perhaps not,’ said Wa-Ka-Mo-Do, sadly.

And as Go-Ver-Dosai thrust forward again, Wa-Ka-Mo-Do took his arm and pulled him over, landed on top of him, his elbow pressed against the other’s shoulder, an awl in his hand.

‘You wouldn’t dare kill me!’ said Go-Ver-Dosai.

‘I already have,’ said Wa-Ka-Mo-Do, and they both heard the crackle of current discharging into the damaged radio equipment.

‘What do you mean?’ said Li-Kallalla, and then he understood what was happening. Wa-Ka-Mo-Do was shorting the coil. That crackle was the sound of Go-Ver-Dosai’s lifeforce being expended in seconds rather than years. The surge was so intense the metal of the nearby transceivers was melting.

‘Traitor!’ screeched Go-Ver-Dosai, his voice way too loud, distorting the malforming speaker. Sparks wriggled their way down the length of this body. ‘You will betray this city too.’

‘I will do my best for its people,’ said Wa-Ka-Mo-Do.

‘You betrayed the Emperor. What’s to stop you betraying the people too?’

The words struck home.

‘I will be loyal to this city…’

‘Will you?’

‘Yes!’

He realized he was arguing with a dying man. This was not behaviour worthy of a warrior of Ekrano.

‘Yes,’ he repeated. ‘I will. This city will be safe in my charge.’

‘Will it?’ asked the dying robot. His body was melting, the heat of his mind was radiating from the metal. ‘Then what about Jai-Lyn?’

‘Jai-Lyn?’ said Wa-Ka-Mo-Do, confused by the sudden change of subject. ‘Jai-Lyn? What has she to do with Sangrel?’

‘Nothing,’ said the robot. ‘Yet she asks for your help. Three times now we have received messages from Ka, asking for you by name.’

‘Jai-Lyn asked for me? Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘The Vestal Virgins ordered us not to.’ His voice distorted. His mind was melting. ‘They buzzz saw the buzzzz treachery in your buzzz mind.’

‘Why did she want me?’

Go-Ver-Dosai just smiled. He reached up and placed a finger to his head, pried open the broken panelling there and pushed the finger inside. There was a blue flash and three loud cracks. He convulsed and died. Smoke came from his head.

Li-Kallalla looked as if his own mind was melting.

‘You killed him…’

Wa-Ka-Mo-Do looked at the young robot.

‘Li-Kallalla,’ he said urgently, ‘whose orders will you follow. Mine, or the Vestal Virgins? Will you speak of what happened in here?’

‘Will you kill me too?’

Wa-Ka-Mo-Do didn’t answer. He didn’t know.

Li-Kallalla spoke, but Wa-Ka-Mo-Do wasn’t listening, swamped by thoughts. Go-Ver-Dosai lay dead and smoking in the middle of the wreckage. He had betrayed the Emperor, betrayed his command, all for what he hoped were the right reasons. Could he be trusted?

Jai-Lyn was asking for help. She had summoned Wa-Ka-Mo-Do. He had promised to go to her aid. But he couldn’t. He had to stay here in this city.

First Ell, then Sangrel. And now Ka.

What was happening on Yukawa?

‘How long will he stay with us?’ asked Melt, looking at the Spontaneous robot walking the Northern Road ahead of them.

‘There’s no telling,’ said Karel. ‘The Spontaneous are like this, especially when they first emerge.’

‘What happens to them then?’

‘Some of them assimilate into the prevailing society. Some of them wander to the borders. They seem to be driven by imperatives according to the knowledge they are born with.’ He looked around at the high mountain views, thoughtfully. ‘Just like us, I suppose. I wonder how he knew about this road?’

‘There have been others here before us,’ said Melt. ‘An army has marched this road. Kavan’s, I suppose.’

Karel hummed in agreement. The high passes of the Northern Road were littered with the ash of portable forges, the stones worn further by the many feet that had passed.

‘The views are amazing up here,’ said Karel, looking at the streams of snowmelt that wet the grey rock beyond the low wall. ‘The sky is bluer. The rocks seem more alive.’

‘I know,’ said Melt, and Karel thought he heard a touch of sadness there. What was he remembering?

‘Why don’t you like Simrock?’ he asked.

‘No reason.’

‘Yes there is. You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.’

‘I’ll tell you why. His mind is twisted around a story. How can we trust him?’

‘All of our minds are twisted around stories,’ said Karel. ‘Who is to say which ones are the right ones?’

‘I need to rest,’ said Melt, suddenly. He sat down, leaning his heavy body against the low wall by the side of the road.

‘Simrock!’ called Karel. The Spontaneous robot was up ahead, looking over a ridge at the road’s descent beyond. He came back to join them.

‘We need to rest.’

They remained in silence for a while, the blue sky deepening to black above them.

‘Did you have a wife, Melt?’ asked Karel.

‘No,’ said Melt.

‘Karel does,’ said Simrock. ‘She’s in Artemis City.’

Metal scraped on rock as Karel turned to stare at the other robot.

‘How do you know that? I never mentioned that to you.’

‘I know about you, Karel,’ said Simrock.

‘How?’

‘How did he know about these mountains?’ asked Melt. ‘I thought that was the way of the Spontaneous.’

‘What do you know of me?’ said Karel, eyes glowing uncomfortably.

‘I know about your mind.’

‘What about it?’

‘I think it’s probably useful for the present time. It’s not the way for regular robots though. Your moment will pass.’

Karel’s gyros had begun to spin, seeking a balance he did not feel.

‘So many minds,’ said Melt. ‘I once heard a saying. A robot is just a mind’s way of making another mind.’

‘Is that supposed to calm me down?’ wondered Karel.

‘I don’t think that applies to the Spontaneous, though,’ continued Melt, following his train of thought. ‘Where do their minds come from?’ He looked suspiciously at Simrock.

‘We’re all probably descended from the Spontaneous,’ said Karel, also staring at Simrock. How many other robots knew who he was? It was an unsettling thought. Here he was in the mountains, and across the world below him there were maybe robots who even now were looking towards him, and pondering his moves.

‘I know a story about where robots come from,’ said Simrock, brightly. ‘The story of Alpha and Gamma.’

‘I never believed that story,’ interrupted Karel, before the story even began. ‘Anyway, what happened to Beta?’

‘That comes later,’ said Simrock. He began his tale.

The Story of Alpha and Gamma

‘Alpha and Gamma lived in the mountains at the Top of the World. They were the first two robots. No one knows where they came from, and no one knows why they decided to make a child. Some people say that the urge was woven into their minds, as it is in all robots’ minds to differing extents, but that would imply there were robots before Alpha and Gamma to do the weaving. Others say that as Alpha and Gamma grew older they desired a robot to look after them in their old age, but that implies they knew of death, and how could the first two robots know of something they had never seen before? And some people say that Alpha and Gamma wove a child because they simply had the idea to do so.

‘So how was the first mind made? For even though there is disagreement about why Alpha and Gamma made a mind, all agree that they did not have the knowledge at first about how to make such a thing. This is something that they learned for themselves.

‘Where to begin? First they opened up each other’s heads and they examined the metal inside. They saw iron and copper, gold, silver, platinum and palladium, and so they went away and they mined ore and they smelted it and they made wire, just like that in their own heads. But the wire they made was straight and smooth and unthinking.

‘“How do we twist it?” asked Gamma, holding the wire in her hands. “Where do we begin? This is just a piece of wire. I see nothing here. No sense of love or fear, no happiness or sadness or yearning or satiety…”

‘But Alpha looked at the wire in another way.

‘“I see none of those things,” he said. “But I can do this…” and he bent the wire around, twisting it over itself.

‘“Now a current flows,” he said, and he twisted again, “now it doesn’t.” And he repeated the movement over again. “Off and on,” he said.

‘“Life and death,” said Gamma. “But there is no emotion there.. .”

‘“Maybe not,” said Alpha. “But emotion is not all there is to a mind. I can do this…”

‘He twisted the wire some more, making two living twists, one larger than the other.

‘“Now it recognizes, more or less,” he said.

‘“More or less?”

‘“Five twists are more than four. Seventy is less than one hundred. More or less.”

‘“More or less? What sort of a mind is that? That’s just numbers. Does it understand that love is more than justice, or that sorrow is more than pain?”

‘“No, but…”

‘“Then stop wasting my time!” And she walked from the mountain ledge where Alpha worked, out into the golden sunset. (For I should say that in those days all sunsets were golden, and the world was beautiful and that metal ore littered the ground.)

‘Alpha sat for some time, but the idea had taken hold of him, as such ideas do with men, and he worked through the night, twisting the wire back and forth. He found he could twist the wire to one hundred positions by rotation around the axis of the wire, and a further one hundred positions by pitch. He could make it add, subtract, multiply and divide; it could look at different parts of its own extent; it could loop around itself and remember. He found that he could string these functions together, but he could do no more than that.

‘And in the end he saw that Gamma was right, that the task was pointless, and as morning dawned, he threw the wire to the floor and walked off in search of his wife so that he might apologize.

‘He looked for her to the north and south, to the east and west, but could not find her. In the end he returned to the ledge to see Gamma sitting there, the length of wire in her hands, and she looked up at Alpha, her eyes shining with awe and wonder.

‘“How did you do it?” she asked.

‘“I did nothing,” he bitterly replied.

‘“Did nothing? You brought life to this wire! It doesn’t feel, it doesn’t know, but the rudiments are there!’’

‘“The rudiments? It does nothing but add and take away!”

‘She stared at him.

‘“Alpha, please, don’t be like that to me. I am sorry for the way I spoke.”

‘“Be like what? I did my best, but I failed.”

‘“Failed?” She looked deeper into his eyes, and saw no deceit there. “Alpha, you did the hardest part! It is almost finished! Look, twist it here, twist it back on itself, see, and it will know itself. Twist it again, and it will know others…”

‘Alpha stared at her.

‘“I don’t see what you mean.”

‘So she showed him again, but he still didn’t understand.

‘And it has ever been thus, that men and women work together to make a child, but neither understands what the other has wrought, nor shall they ever.’ ‘And that is the story of Alpha and Gamma and how they made the first child.’

Simrock beamed at them, delighted.

‘Hold on,’ said Karel, ‘what about Beta?’

‘Oh yes, Beta. In some stories, it is said there was a third robot, Beta, who sat between Alpha and Gamma and placed the extra twists in the metal that moved it from the male understanding to the female understanding. Some say that Beta crept to the ledge in the night and added the extra twists. And some say that Alpha and Gamma never existed, there was only Beta.’

‘How do you know all this?’ asked Melt. ‘You’re Spontaneous, you have only just arrived here. How do you know all this?’

‘I don’t know.’

Karel was wondering aloud. ‘Where do these stories come from?’ he asked. ‘Stories of Four Blind Horses, of Valerie of Klimt, stories of Alpha and Gamma, of Nicolas the Coward. This world is built on stories, some of them we know, some of them we don’t even understand! Where do they come from?’

‘I don’t know!’

‘Why does no one ever ask?’

‘It’s not woven into people’s minds to ask,’ said Melt. ‘Why should it be? They’re only stories.’

‘I’m asking!’

Karel was suddenly shaken, as if by a bolt of electricity. Morphobia Alligator had spoken of this. Robots like Karel, robots who could choose to do things that weren’t woven into their minds.

Robots who saw things that other robots did not.

Karel looked around. Melt, the robot who claimed to have forgotten his past, sat on one side, Simrock the Spontaneous robot on the other. All three of them on a forgotten road through the high mountains. He had once thought that that life in Turing City was liberal and edgy and cosmopolitan. Now it all seemed so safe and predictable, a tiny little island in a far corner of the world.

He had had to come up here to realize just how strange his world really was.

Was he the only one who saw it?

Wa-Ka-Mo-Do made his way from the radio room and out into Smithy Square, his gyros spinning. What was going on? What had happened in Ell?

Wa-Ka-Mo-Do imagined walking through that city. Ell was a beautiful place, set with towers tiled in blue, green and gold. The city was famous for its ceramics, it was said there wasn’t a surface in the city that wasn’t tiled. The robots of Ell made a red iron oxide glaze of a colour unsurpassed throughout Yukawa.

Now he imagined those tiled streets filled with the dead bodies of robots. Bodies slumped on the ground, their arms and legs entangled, their eyes lifeless and faint smoke emerging from their heads. What had the humans done there? What would they be doing in Ka? Jai-Lyn had asked for his help. There was something so pathetic about that request. They had only met for a few hours, and yet she had turned to him. Was that a surprise? Wa-Ka-Mo-Do was probably the most important robot she had ever met.

He walked from the Copper Master’s house into the daylight. The sun was bright, it thinned the black smoke, it threw the scorch marks across the tiled square into harsh relief.

The sight of the humans clustered around one of their cannons at the edge of the square irritated him. La-Ver-Di-Arussah was there, speaking to one of them.

She beckoned him to join her.

‘Honoured Commander, the humans have requested that we remove ourselves from the Copper Master’s house and relocate lower down the city.’ La-Ver-Di-Arussah was buzzing with energy. ‘I’ve already sent Ka-Lo-Re-Harballah down to secure an area around the Copper Market.’

Wa-Ka-Mo-Do looked at the broken roof of the Emperor’s palace, looked at the strange cannons that the humans were erecting all around the perimeter of the square. They seemed to move of their own accord, their strange metal muzzles constantly scanning the sky.

‘How are the robots of the city?’ asked Wa-Ka-Mo-Do.

‘They remain under control.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘Honoured Commander?’ Her face was innocent. He saw the knot insignias on her panelling and thought of Go-Ver-Dosai, lying dead in the radio room. What would Li-Kallalla do, he wondered? Who would the young robot betray, Wa-Ka-Mo-Do or the Emperor?

Either way, it was out of his hands now.

Wa-Ka-Mo-Do looked up again at the broken roof.

‘Have the humans apologized for what happened to our city?’ he asked aloud.

‘Honoured Commander?’

‘Nothing.’ Wa-Ka-Mo-Do straightened up. He had chosen his path, now he had to walk it. ‘La-Ver-Di-Arussah, fetch me the human commander.’

‘Honoured Commander, he is far too busy at the moment. He is co-ordinating other troop movements, preparing a counterattack on those who came here last night.’

Too busy, thought Wa-Ka-Mo-Do. He is too busy to speak to me.

‘So, Honoured Commander, shall I organize the withdrawal from the Copper Master’s house?’

‘No, La-Ver-Di-Arussah. No. I don’t think so. We will remain where we are for the moment.’

‘But the humans said…’

Wa-Ka-Mo-Do felt the current begin to hum inside him.

‘The humans are no longer in charge here. I am. And I received my orders from the Emperor, not ten minutes ago.’

‘But-’

‘No buts, La-Ver-Di-Arussah. Tell the human commander I will be pleased to see him at his earliest convenience, here, in the middle of Smithy Square. Tell him that I will be pleased to discuss his continued presence in my city.’

‘But-’

‘Tell him that now, La-Ver-Di-Arussah. And whilst you’re doing it, get me Ka-Lo-Re-Harballah. He will no longer be required to secure quarters for us in the Copper Market. We’re staying here. Quickly now, La-Ver-Di-Arussah.’

She didn’t move quickly. As slowly as possible, La-Ver-Di-Arussah turned and moved away. He wasn’t overly surprised when he saw her head, not in the direction of the Street of Becoming, but back towards the group of humans. Wa-Ka-Mo-Do didn’t watch their hurried conversation, but made his way instead to look out across Lake Ochoa towards the Mound of Eternity.

There was a lot of movement down there today. Human machines – those boxy green and yellow shapes that spent much of their time in the fields to the south of the city – had been brought back here to the very edge of the city and set to excavating holes, moving soil and gravel.

Human craft flew above them. They were lifting up machines on cables, carrying them to new locations. Wa-Ka-Mo-Do watched as a craft headed up to the terrace, one of the strange guns swinging on a cable beneath it.

Wa-Ka-Mo-Do ignored it. He was still scanning the area around the lake. Amongst all the humans he saw robots. Many, many robots. More robots than had business being there. It was happening already. All the resentment that had been building up over the past weeks had found a focus. Sangrel had been attacked. To make matters worse, the humans were withdrawing from the surrounding land. Whatever pressure had been holding those farmers and miners in their place was being released. They were coming towards the city. For the moment, they were only watching. But for how long would that be true…

‘Wa-Ka-Mo-Do!’

Wa-Ka-Mo-Do turned to see a human female. She wore grey cloth panelling; her face was dappled with dew, like metal in the morning.

‘I’m Gillian.’ The female held out a hand, and Wa-Ka-Mo-Do took it in his own, the way he had seen other humans do, and moved it up and down.

‘My official title is Honoured Commander.’

‘I’m sorry, Honoured Commander. Blame the translating machine.’ Wa-Ka-Mo-Do watched the little blinking light as the female spoke. ‘Listen, we have a problem. You saw the attack last night? You saw the machines that came here? Well, our intelligence suggests that the next attack will be with much faster craft. Craft that use rockets for propulsion, not propeller blades. Do you understand those concepts?’

‘I understand.’

‘Good! Now, do you see our cannon? They’re fully automatic. They can track moving objects many miles away, they can turn and fire in a fraction of a second.’

‘They are impressive devices indeed,’ replied Wa-Ka-Mo-Do, politely.

‘Thank you, Honoured Commander.’ Gillian seemed pleased at the compliment. She was not at all like Rachael, Wa-Ka-Mo-Do noted. Her hair was grey, her face had far more lines upon it. ‘But there is a problem,’ she continued. ‘You see, the enemy has equally fast devices. We need to give our cannon enough time to see and react to an attack.’

‘I understand this.’

‘Good! Then you will understand why we need to occupy the Copper Master’s house.’

‘I understand.’ Gillian beamed. ‘But there is another solution, you realize? A much simpler one.’

‘Yes?’ Gillian leaned forward, listening carefully. ‘And what’s that?’

‘If you were to leave this city, there would be no reason for an attack to take place.’

There was a moment’s silence, and the human adopted an expression that Wa-Ka-Mo-Do could not quite read. She moved her head from side to side. Wa-Ka-Mo-Do knew from Rachael that this meant disagreement.

‘Sadly, Honoured Commander, it would just make the attack more likely. The attackers will seek to take control of this city themselves.’

And would that be any worse than your presence? wondered Wa-Ka-Mo-Do.

‘So, you will give your permission?’

‘I’ll think about it.’

Wa-Ka-Mo-Do was suddenly flushed with self-doubt. What had he done? By destroying the radio he had completely isolated himself. He had placed himself in charge of this dreadful mess, and he didn’t know what to do next. What if removing the guns left the city open to worse attack? How was he to know?

‘You’ll think about it?’ said the woman, and something in her attitude hardened. ‘I thought it was understood, this city is a gift to the humans from the Emperor.’

‘A gift?’ said Wa-Ka-Mo-Do, and he felt double a lurch of betrayal, one by his Emperor, one by himself. ‘I wasn’t told about that. I was only told to command the Emperor’s Army of San-grel.’

‘Robot, there-’

‘My title is Honoured Commander. You will show me respect by using it!’

Her eyes widened at the tone of his voice. Even through his annoyance he saw the way her animal body tensed, and then relaxed.

‘Fine. Honoured Commander, there will be another attack tonight. Would you hinder it? What would your Emperor say?’

‘I don’t know. Nor have I the means to find out. The radio is destroyed.’

‘Destroyed? How?’

‘Just destroyed. I said I will think about your request. You may go.’

The woman looked at him for a moment, and he caught a hint of Rachael in her expression.

Rachael! thought Wa-Ka-Mo-Do. Where is she? Did she live through the attack? He hadn’t thought of her since returning to the city; he had been too busy dealing with the fallout. Jai-Lyn, Rachael… He hadn’t exactly promised the human he would look after her, but even so

But, to his relief, here she came now, there amongst a group of humans that had just emerged from the western gate. She wore different panelling today, something of a heavier cloth, it showed very little of her skin, it concealed the shape of her body rather than displaying it to the world, as had been her style in the past. The other humans were dressed in the same manner; they were almost like the soldiers that guarded them, the long black spikes of their rifles held not quite pointing at the ground.

Rachael was marching with her father, part of the group of the more important humans. Wa-Ka-Mo-Do looked for the anthracite-skinned ambassador, with his iron skin, but he couldn’t see him.

‘Honoured Commander!’

A woman stepped forward. Wa-Ka-Mo-Do recognized her as Captain Littler, La-Ver-Di-Arussah’s equivalent amongst the human soldiers.

‘Captain,’ said Wa-Ka-Mo-Do. He watched the little light on her headset flicker as he spoke, translating his words.

‘Honoured Commander, we must apologize for what has occurred in this city last night! I hope you understand that we are not ourselves without losses. Ambassador Mbeki died in the Emperor’s Palace.’

‘That is a great sadness,’ said Wa-Ka-Mo-Do. ‘Many robots also died last night.’

‘We’re sorry, truly we are.’

Wa-Ka-Mo-Do couldn’t read her face. Was that expression one of genuine sorrow? Whatever it was, it vanished immediately.

‘But Honoured Commander, you must understand, this is not the end. Our intelligence tells us that we will be attacked again tonight. We must take appropriate defensive action!’

Wa-Ka-Mo-Do asked the question that no one else seemed yet to have asked.

‘Why was this city attacked by other humans?’

He saw Rachael staring at him, her copper sulphate eyes willing him on. Willing him to do what?

Captain Littler had lost her voice. She was speaking to the other humans, but the light on her headset stayed dark. The unpleasantly wet organic sounds she made annoyed Wa-Ka-Mo-Do unduly. Now she turned to him and that little light began flashing once more.

‘I am sorry, Honoured Commander, that we did not tell you the full truth earlier, but you will understand our embarrassment. You see, one of our units has gone rogue. A company of soldiers have broken away from our command; they seek to overthrow the legitimate government of Sangrel in order that they might exploit your land.’

Wa-Ka-Mo-Do watched Rachael as Captain Littler spoke. He tried to read the expression on the young woman’s soft face. She was trying to tell him something, he was certain of it.

‘A company of your soldiers?’

‘You must sympathize, Honoured Commander. After all, your own robots seek to rebel against you.’

Only since you came here, thought Wa-Ka-Mo-Do.

‘I am sorry to say some of this rebellion was fuelled by humans.’

Wa-Ka-Mo-Do thought of the petrol cans back in the fields. The human-made cans.

‘But believe me, Honoured Commander, once captured, they will be made to pay for their actions. For now, though, we need your help.’

‘And you may have it, Captain Littler. Only not at the expense of the robots under my command.’

He saw La-Ver-Di-Arussah and Ka-Lo-Re-Harballah approaching, hurrying across the square. Ka-Lo-Re-Harballah was wearing another robot’s arm.

‘I was pulled into a crowd,’ he explained. ‘They wrenched my own from me.’

‘I took that arm from another robot,’ said La-Ver-Di-Arussah. ‘Honoured Commander, is there discord between you and the humans?’

‘There is no discord, only misunderstanding,’ said Captain Littler, smoothly. ‘I’m sure that the commander will aid us to his fullest ability.’

‘Of course I will.’

‘Honoured Commander,’ said La-Ver-Di-Arussah, ‘I know your feelings on this matter, but may I strongly suggest we open fire on the crowd below in order to encourage their dispersal? They are getting angry.’

‘Of course they are! Their city was attacked!’

‘It is, of course, the Emperor’s city,’ corrected La-Ver-Di-Arussah.

‘I thought it belonged to the humans now?’ replied Wa-Ka-Mo-Do.

‘Then obey their orders, as the Emperor commanded.’

‘I told you, the Emperor has issued new orders.’

‘So you said. Ka-Lo-Re-Harballah,’ she turned to face the young robot, ‘go and bring confirmation from the radio room.’

‘You dare to question my authority, La-Ver-Di-Arussah?’

‘No, Honoured Commander, but confirmation is appropriate in these circumstances.’

‘Sadly, that will not be possible. The radio is destroyed.’

La-Ver-Di-Arussah gazed at him, and he could feel the surge of the current through her body even from here. She was angry.

‘How did that happen?’

‘Go-Ver-Dosai lies dead amongst the debris. He did not like the Emperor’s words.’

He felt such shame. He hadn’t lied as such, but what he had implied was not the truth.

‘You’re saying that Go-Ver-Dosai destroyed the radio?’

La-Ver-Di-Arussah stared at him. He knew that she was wondering whether or not to challenge him, here and now. Even the humans felt it. They were listening to the exchange in silence, their wet eyes wide.

‘Ka-Lo-Re-Harballah,’ ordered La-Ver-Di-Arussah. ‘Go and see what must be done. Find out how long it will be until the radio is repaired.’

‘Ka-Lo-Re-Harballah is under my command,’ warned Wa-Ka-Mo-Do.

‘It was a reasonable request, Hounoured Commander.’

It was. He directed Ka-Lo-Re-Harballah to go.

‘And so, Honoured Commander,’ pressed La-Ver-Di-Arussah. ‘What of the robots who approach this square? Shall we open fire?’

‘Not yet. Order the robots to disperse. Tell them that I am controlling this city now, and that there may be another attack tonight.’

Captain Littler stepped forward.

‘And that’s why, Honoured Commander, it is of the utmost importance that the guns are set up in the Copper Master’s house!’

‘Then set them up,’ said La-Ver-Di-Arussah.

Wa-Ka-Mo-Do drew his sword.

‘You undermine my authority for the last time, La-Ver-Di-Arussah. I challenge you to a duel.’

‘What? Here in the middle of preparations for battle?’ She laughed. ‘You are being ridiculous, Wa-Ka-Mo-Do.’

‘Fight, or I will cut you down where you stand.’

Rachael ducked under her father’s arm and ran forward from the group of humans. She paused just short of where Wa-Ka-Mo-Do stood, his sword gleaming sharp, La-Ver-Di-Arussah looking up at him, taunting him.

‘Stop this!’ she called. ‘This is so stupid!’

‘Stand back, Rachael,’ said Wa-Ka-Mo-Do, voice low.

‘Rachael, get back here!’

The young woman rounded on her father, face red.

‘You’re going to get them all killed! Don’t you care?’

At a nod from her father, one of the humans dressed in green stepped forward to pull Rachael back.

‘You get a soldier to do your dirty work now?’ she said in tones of disgust. ‘Wa-Ka-Mo-Do,’ she called, turning those blue eyes upon him. ‘Stop her! You’ve got to listen to me!’

Slowly, Wa-Ka-Mo-Do resheathed his sword, and he saw the humans relax a little. Then he held up a hand. He flexed the blades at the ends of his fingers. The green human saw them, looked to Rachael’s father for instructions.

‘Let her speak,’ commanded Wa-Ka-Mo-Do.

‘Would the Emperor be pleased that you threaten his guests?’

‘Be quiet, La-Ver-Di-Arussah!’

Rachael’s face had changed colour, became chalk white, and again Wa-Ka-Mo-Do recognized something in common with her. They were both at the edge of something. Wa-Ka-Mo-Do had just crossed a boundary, Rachael was about to.

‘Speak, Rachael,’ said Wa-Ka-Mo-Do. And Rachael took a deep breath and did just that.

‘It’s the people here, Wa-Ka-Mo-Do,’ she began. ‘The people of -- --. Don’t you see, that they’re just – --.

There are -- -- --.’ She gradually became aware that her words were not being translated, and she pulled the headset from her head and rounded on her father.

‘SSSSSSSWWWW WWSSSWSDSDD,’ she shouted at him. ‘OOO SSSSS SSKKSKKSWWWSSKKS.’

Her father recoiled at her words.

‘You can’t have it,’ he said.

‘SSSKKK SSSKKK WWWWWKKKW.’

‘What they do is nothing to do with us!’

‘WWKKK SSKKKS SSSSSWWWKKK.’

She was winning, Wa-Ka-Mo-Do could tell. He was no expert at human body language, but he could see that Rachael was winning the argument. Her father gave in, pulled the headset from his head and passed it to Rachael. She took it, and when she spoke now, it was with her father’s voice.

‘Don’t you see, Wa-Ka-Mo-Do,’ she said, in deep tones that were at odds with her appearance. ‘We’re not part of one human tribe or Empire, come here to deal with you.’

‘I guessed that.’

‘No! You don’t know how bad it is! They kept this planet a secret for as long as they could, but there are so many different concerns back on Earth, and they’re all rushing here to exploit this place. Dragging whole families along if it’s more convenient that way…’

Her father shouted something to her, something not translated.

‘No, father, you never did care about anything except your precious job.’ Her face had changed colour again, it now glowed red.

‘Wa-Ka-Mo-Do, you’re wasting time arguing, you don’t know how bad it is. We’re only the first, but there are more humans coming. Better equipped and better armed! They’ll take this planet from you!’

‘We won’t let them,’ said Wa-Ka-Mo-Do, with a confidence he didn’t feel.

Rachael laughed bitterly.

‘Won’t let them? You haven’t a choice! Look at what happened to Ell!’

And at that her father stepped forward and grabbed the headset from her.

‘That’s enough, Rachael,’ he said, but he said it in Rachael’s voice.

‘What happened in Ell?’ said Wa-Ka-Mo-Do, the blades on his hands extended.

‘That wasn’t us,’ said Rachael’s father. ‘It was – -’

He pulled a face, put his own headset back in place. Now he spoke in his own, uncensored voice.

‘It was another organization that attacked Ell. The one that attacks us now. They are bigger and stronger than us.’

‘Good! Then we’ll throw you out of this city and let them deal with you. Perhaps they will leave us in peace.’

‘Don’t be a fool! We’re the best you’ll ever get. We’re half sponsored by the SEAU University, they want us to research your society. All the other organizations are interested in is profit! They will exploit this city just like they exploited Ell. And if you get in their way, as the robots of Ell did, they will destroy you too.’

Wa-Ka-Mo-Do felt as if his lifeforce was draining away. He looked at La-Ver-Di-Arussah struggling to hide her uncertainty.

‘And the Emperor permits this?’ he said in despair.

‘The Emperor does not,’ said Rachael’s father. ‘Not any more. The Emperor lost control of Yukawa months ago! Back when he first made a deal with us. Hah! He thought he was being so clever. He didn’t have a clue. Not a clue.’

Wa-Ka-Mo-Do brought his hands up, blades extended.

‘I should kill you now!’ he said.

Rachael was there, standing between the two of them.

‘Wa-Ka-Mo-Do, no! That’s my father!’

Slowly, Wa-Ka-Mo-Do lowered his hands.

‘What would you do now, Honoured Commander?’ taunted La-Ver-Di-Arussah. She had regained her composure.

‘You heard what he said,’ replied Wa-Ka-Mo-Do. ‘The Emperor no longer rules Yukawa.’

‘Human lies. The Emperor will always rule.’

‘Then how do you explain that!’ He pointed to the smashed roof of the Emperor’s palace. La-Ver-Di-Arussah ignored it. She was constructing her own reality. One where she was still an important robot. She ignored anything that didn’t fit in with that world view.

Wa-Ka-Mo-Do turned around.

‘Captain Littler, you may liaise with my staff as to the placement of your guns, however the Copper Master’s house remains under my control. La-Ver-Di-Arussah, you will assist Ka-Lo-Re-Harballah in warning the robots of Sangrel of tonight’s attack. Tell them they may leave the city if they wish, though I cannot guarantee their safety, no matter where they go.’

‘Yes, Honoured Commander,’ said La-Ver-Di-Arussah. ‘And the humans?’

‘After you have followed my orders you will find them quarters in the middle city.’

‘Certainly, Honoured Commander.’

He watched her cross the square. He couldn’t trust her, but if he kept her here he would have to fight her, and he didn’t have time for that. He turned to Rachael, who gazed back, blue eyes looking from a white face. His copper girl.

‘Are you frightened?’ he said.

‘No,’ said Rachael. But she was, he knew it. He was too. He was lost, isolated, cut off from his Emperor, severed from his command, and diverging from the path he had followed since childhood. Then something else occurred to him.

‘Ka,’ he said. ‘What do you know about Ka?’

‘Ka?’ said Rachael. ‘That’s the city on the coast, isn’t it? The one with the whales?’

‘Yes.’ He thought about Jai-Lyn, so similar to this human, if such a thing was possible.

‘Ka,’ said Rachael. ‘They occupy it, the -. The ones who – Ell.’

Her headset was censoring her again. It didn’t matter, he had got the gist of the conversation.

Either way, Jai-Lyn was on her own. He had problems enough of his own here in Sangrel.

The robots of Artemis City strained for a view of the animals, but they were too far away to be properly seen. They were building themselves a compound to the south-west of the city. Susan watched it growing from the windows of the Centre City, following Spoole from room to room. She had seen the construction as a series of separate pictures, each framed and viewed from a slightly different vantage point. In a room of computers, busily calculating figures relayed to them on foil sheets, she had watched as the larger craft had settled on the plain, the smaller craft hovering above it all the while, standing guard. The two ships were so alien, painted in bright, unrobotlike colours, covered in strange symbols, and so, so large. When the sun passed behind it in the evening, the smaller craft cast a shadow across the whole southern part of the city, and Susan saw robots standing in the streets, gazing up and pointing to it.

They had spent a day in an index room, Spoole asking questions, sending green robots scurrying this way and that, bringing back still more sheets of foil on which answers were written, and Susan had watched through the window as yellow machines with huge shovels on the front had dug great trenches into the plain. Other machines set to work erecting the metal skeletons of buildings whilst yet more drove around them, spilling black tar across the plain, making roads and squares for still more machines to run across. The humans seemed to have a machine for everything!

Susan could see the blue-painted shells of the engineers in the distance, watching from the newly constructed iron walls of Artemis City, noting everything they could about the animals’ devices.

Spoole seemed to be getting nowhere.

‘I’m being given the run around,’ he said to Susan, as they rested in a forge one afternoon, Susan idly rubbing a file across her seams. ‘Sandale and the rest don’t dare get rid of me, at least not yet, but they’re not going to help me. Don’t worry though. We’ll find your friend somehow. Here, take some of this.’

He handed Susan some platinum wire that lay bundled on a shelf near the fire. Susan accepted it with bad grace. He didn’t seem to get it. He thought they were both friends now, rather than just two people united in a common cause. She looked at the wire, felt it. It was very pure, as good a quality as anything she would have found back in Turing City. She looked around and realized that everything in this room was superior. The plate iron, the chrome steel alloy, the choice of solders in a range of thicknesses. Truly, in Artemis City, not all robots were quite so equal as they would have you believe.

‘I can’t believe that Sandale and the rest would betray Shull to the humans,’ she said.

‘They claim to still follow Nyro. They have gained more metal than they have lost. The animals have presented the city with iron and gold. There are rumours…’ He looked around the room. No one else was present, any robot who entered swiftly withdrew when they saw Spoole there. ‘There are rumours that they have presented Artemis with aluminium.’

‘Aluminium?’ said Susan. She felt a tingle of current in her hands. She was a craftsrobot. What would she give in order to feel the mythical element? ‘Still, even if it were true, you sell your principles cheaply. The animals are taking more than they give. You’ve seen that base they are building. Do you think they will be content to stay there when all of Artemis City is on their doorstep? The whole of Shull will be connected to their base by railway lines.’

‘I know that,’ said Spoole complacently. He was too busy twisting a sheet of copper into shape.

Susan looked at the other robot. She hated him. And yet she followed him.

The next day they had walked the corridors of the Main Index, and Susan was sure she saw robots ducking out of their way as they approached. Spoole was right, she decided, they were giving him the run around. The clerks were helpful, but only up to a point.

Outside, the animals were at work again, erecting a perimeter of guns around their base. Strange guns, almost like robot women, they moved by themselves in a kind of dance, spinning this way and that as they looked across the wide plain. They reminded Susan of the Turing City Guard, the way they too had danced in the night whilst patrolling the city.

That evening there was a shift in the light, lines of shadows moving across the city, golden and dirty in the setting sun, and Susan saw the second craft, the one that had hung there these past few days, descending slowly to the ground, settling within the perimeter of guns.

Blue and silver and black and grey robots crowded the walls, watching the spectacle. The ship came to rest, and a stillness settled over the city.

‘They’re here,’ said Susan, spite in her voice, ‘they have really arrived. I don’t think this is our world any more.’

‘It was never your world,’ said Spoole, ‘it was always Nyro’s.’

A week passed, and Spoole was no closer to their goal. Worse, they were starting to be noticed. Infantryrobots seemed always to be present, standing in rooms, passing them in corridors, repairing themselves in forges they would not normally frequent.

‘The Generals will only tolerate me as long as they think I am not a threat,’ said Spoole. ‘Fools. They always seek to avoid direct confrontation as long as possible. Still, it would be wise if we were to try something else for the moment.’

They left the high rooms of the Basilica and the Centre City, and descended to street level.

‘Where you taking me now?’ asked Susan.

‘The Old City.’

‘Look at the stars,’ said Susan, pointing. ‘They’re falling.’

‘No,’ said Spoole. ‘They’re taking down the wall. They don’t need it now that Kavan has been defeated.’

Susan looked at the stepped shape to the west. She could make out the robots working quickly to disassemble the structure. She guessed they would be shipping it to the forges and factories at the northern end of the city, to be turned it into more soldiers for Artemis.

‘You really think Kavan is defeated?’ she said.

‘I don’t know,’ said Spoole. ‘The Generals always underestimated him, as did I.’

He looked towards the stars that shone in the gaps where the wall had been.

‘I wonder if the animals have done so as well,’ he murmured.

Kavan

Kavan felt the downdraft from the human ship as it flew overhead. It scattered dust and sand across the plain, blowing yet more inside his metal body.

‘It’s landing,’ said Calor, excitedly. ‘It’s landing!’

They lay beneath a thin covering of sand with their heads pressed together, using vibration more than sound to communicate.

‘How far?’ asked Kavan.

‘Just under a mile.’

‘Do you think you can make it, Calor?’

‘I know I can.’

Kavan wondered if he should make her wait, but no. One day’s grace was the most they could hope for, after that the humans would have learned and rethought their tactics.

‘Do the best you can,’ he said, and he felt the current surge as she charged her electromuscles. She held it there, held it, letting it build to peak and then…

She eased her way slowly from the ground, her silver body gritty where the sand had stuck to the thin film of oil with which she had covered herself. Kavan raised his own head above the level of the earth, and saw the luminous green craft in the distance, the big blades on the top of the craft spinning, beating up the dust. Half seen through the haze, two humans were unloading a yellow crate from a hatch in the side of the craft. The robots had watched the humans at work on these crates before. They contained a mechanism that unfolded itself from the box like a robot climbing to its feet. A skeleton of metal that stood up and held out its arms. The Artemisian plain had been studded with pylons over the last few weeks: this would be the next in line. The humans were taking over the land, mile by mile, relentlessly imposing their machinery on Shull. Even the earth itself was not left untouched: out near the western coast, great areas of land had been churned up by human machines that crept back and forth on their hands and knees, turning shiny brown swathes of soil over to face the sunlight.

The advance was remorseless and logical. It was this very logic that Kavan was hoping to exploit: it was so easy to predict where they would be next.

Calor moved forward. The humans had the crate on the ground now; they were unfolding its sides, unaware of the Scout creeping up on them.

She had covered barely one hundred yards when a proximity signal rang out from the craft. The animals’ heads jerked in Kavan’s direction at the same time as Calor sprang forward, releasing stored current through her electromuscles at an incredible rate. She tore forwards, a sandy silver flashing pattern of light, her arms and legs pumping away as she closed the distance.

The humans froze, they stumbled towards their craft, hesitated, returned to the crate, then ran back into the craft. All the time Calor was closing the distance. The humans were inside now, the pitch of the engine increased.

Calor was still too far off, Kavan saw the dust whirling in a pool as the rotors’ speed increased, he saw the black turret at the front of the craft swivel towards the Scout. The craft began to lift, and a line of explosions travelled towards Calor. She easily sidestepped the jumping path that cut across the plain, giving that last desperate burst of speed as the craft lifted higher; she jumped, claws extended

She plunged the blades deep into the side of the machine.

Kavan realized he had just been standing, watching. He remembered his own role and began to run towards the craft himself. The line of explosions turned and began to pick its way across the plain, heading in his direction. Closer it came, and he prepared himself to jump to the side, just as he had seen Calor do, but the line suddenly swung off erratically. The craft was spinning wildly across the sky.

Calor had made it inside.

The luminous green craft twisted this way and that, headed downwards, pulled up at the last moment, lost height again, and dived into the ground, ploughing a furrow of sand. The great blades on the top touched the earth, and Kavan ducked as they tore themselves apart in a reckless fury of metal. Fragments of the blades flew across the plain, tearing more grooves in the sand.

Smoke emerged from the stricken ship. Kavan was running towards it again, going to the aid of Calor. If she had survived.

His muscles hummed as he loped forward, watching for movement from within. Yellow flames slowly slid their way down the rear of the craft.

Nothing. No! A jagged hole was torn open in the front of the craft and something emerged. Something blackened and twisted. Kavan caught a glimpse of silver and realized it was Calor. She fell to the ground, struggled to get up again.

Her body was burned and twisted, the left side of her chest riddled with bullet holes.

‘Get away, Kavan,’ she said. ‘That thing is full of petrol.’

Kavan thrust a shoulder beneath her arm, and half walked, half carried her away from the craft.

‘It might explode,’ she said.

‘You’re too valuable,’ said Kavan.

‘Now I know I’m mad,’ said Calor. ‘Metal must be twisted out of true. I just heard Kavan say that I was too valuable. I’m nothing but metal.’

‘At the moment you’re one of the few robots who know about human craft,’ said Kavan. ‘You’re more valuable than mere metal for the next few days at least.’

The noise of the flames behind them died away. They turned to see white foam oozing from all the cracks in the stricken craft, saw it smothering the flames.

‘Clever,’ said Kavan. ‘Very clever.’

‘Not if you’re stuck inside the craft with it. Not if you need to burn oxygen to make energy like the animals do.’

‘It looks safe to go in now,’ said Kavan.

‘How long do you think we have?’

‘Half an hour at most.’

Kavan raised a hand. A mile away on the plain, the sand and grit began to stir. Ada emerged from the ground, followed by three other blue-panelled robots. They hurried towards the craft.

While the engineers got to work on the craft, Kavan helped Calor strip away the damaged panelling from her chest. They both worked on the mechanism inside.

‘You keep yourself in good repair,’ said Kavan, approvingly.

‘Thank you. I wish I had some oil.’

‘Here,’ said Kavan, producing a small canister. ‘I’ll do it.’ He squeezed a couple of drops onto the mechanism in her chest, and the part that had been scorched by flames resumed its regular motion.

‘You know they will send other craft to destroy that one? They don’t want us finding out their secrets.’

‘You said we had half an hour.’

‘They may come sooner.’

‘Then we’ll run.’

Time passed as the pair of them worked on, the engineers busy nearby.

‘You’ll be okay, I think,’ said Kavan finally, looking at the streaks the acid had burned into the chest panelling they had carefully slid back into place.

‘I’ll be fine. It’s only metal.’

‘I know that.’

Ada appeared at his side.

‘Kavan, we’re ready to go.’

The other engineers were moving away from the stricken craft, carrying various parts they had salvaged from the machine. Two long cylinders, about half the height of a robot; a metal canister that sloshed with liquid, two thick cables emerging from one end; several smaller pieces of equipment. The engineers held them carefully, reverently. All of the pieces had that overly complicated design of human machinery, too many wires, too many parts.

‘Come on,’ said Kavan. ‘Back beneath the ground.’

‘Too late!’ called Calor, looking up into the distance.

Kavan followed her gaze. He couldn’t see anything yet, but he wasn’t a Scout. ‘Should we run?’ he asked.

As soon as he said it he saw a straight line, ruled across the sky, foreshortening. No noise. It was travelling faster than-

The missile hit the human craft with less noise than he had expected. More of a crack than a bang. Kavan realized that Ada was still standing, watching what was going on.

‘They use depleted uranium for the shell tips. I know that. I think there is a magnesium charge inside, but there is something else there as well, I’m sure. Look how it burns!’

The craft was already glowing white hot, the metal collapsing in on itself. She took a step towards it. Kavan pulled her back by the arm.

‘Look out, Ada!’

Two lines of jumping sand ran towards them. Ada watched them approach, then stepped out of their way, quite unconcerned.

‘They have too little control at that distance,’ she explained. ‘You can tell by the spacing between the bullet impacts.’

‘Ada, you mad Tok, get down.’

‘They won’t come closer,’ said Ada. ‘They’ll be worried we’ll bring them down too, just like we did the first craft.’

Kavan got to his feet, wondering at what was happening here. It wasn’t like him to shelter whilst others walked around calmly. Two more lines of bullets tore across the sand, and the blue robots stepped around them once more. Behind Kavan the burning craft was collapsing into a molten pool, fusing the sand around itself. Thin smoke rose into the bright day.

‘What did you find?’ asked Kavan. The bullets were curving around again, coming back towards them, then suddenly, they just stopped.

‘It’s hard to say,’ said Ada. ‘The mechanisms make sense, up to a point, but there are parts missing, or parts that shouldn’t function as they do. I’m certain it’s all down to this.’

She held out a flat square object. Fine gold wires were arranged in patterns around the side.

‘I think it’s the human equivalent of a mind. A metal mind, I mean, a robot mind. It’s made of stone and metal.’

‘It’s like a mirror on the top.’

‘If you look at it under a lens you can see incredibly complicated patterns there. Finer than a woman could weave, more complex than a man could make.’

Kavan turned the object this way and that.

‘We can copy most parts of the human craft, but without a suitable mind, I don’t think we can make it fly.’

Calor had little interest for the alien machinery. She was built to run and fight and look into the distance. She was doing so now.

‘Kavan,’ she said. ‘Something’s coming.’

Kavan saw it too. A dark craft with wide wings, two large engines mounted at the tail. It moved slowly but deliberately, flying low over the surface of the plain.

‘What do we do?’ asked Calor.

‘I’d like to try something,’ said Ada. ‘Would you mind?’

Kavan looked on as two of the engineers stepped forward. Things were changing so quickly. For years he had barely paid the blue robots any attention. The engineers had always arrived after the main attack. But now, with the arrival of the humans, they were taking on a new role, stepping forward and taking the lead whilst he and his robots stood and watched. Just like now. Two of the engineers were handling one of the cylinders they had retrieved from the stricken craft, pointing it towards the approaching aeroplane. Kavan could see the animal in the clear glass cockpit at the front of the craft, he heard the whistling of the two engines, saw the dark holes of the guns as the front of the craft turned to face him, heard the rippling smack and crack as bullets stitched a line towards him.

‘Ada, are you sure about this…’

Then there was a snap, a flare, and a whoosh of flame. A missile crowning a line of light, it travelled from the cylinder the two robots were aiming and connected with the craft just below the cockpit. The glass bubble filled with orange-yellow flame; there was an explosion all along the fuselage. The wings of the craft folded down and the whole thing fell to the ground, skidding towards them.

‘Well done, Ada,’ said Kavan, genuinely impressed. ‘Well done, all of you.’

He turned to see one of the engineers lying on the ground, most of the area below the chest burned away. Ada was carefully removing the head and the coil from the body.

‘He’s okay,’ she said, ‘but it means we can carry less.’

‘Never mind. There will be more craft, I’m sure.’

‘Come on,’ said Calor, dancing from foot to foot. ‘We really need to get away now.’

‘Sure. But you can carry something, too.’ said Ada.

Kavan was impressed at the way the engineer had assumed command. He didn’t mind. Whatever was best for Artemis.

He wondered if Sandale and the rest of the Generals would see it that way.

Susan

‘This way,’ said Spoole, leading Susan deeper into the Half-fused City. When the Storm Trooper had chased her through here before, the place had been deserted. Now the area was teaming with robots.

‘What’s going on?’ Spoole asked a passing infantryrobot.

‘We’re relaying the railway lines,’ said a soldier. ‘Now that Kavan has gone, the wall is coming down and we’re plugging ourselves back into the continent. Artemis is getting ready to march again.’

‘Kavan is gone? You’re certain of that?’

‘The animals cleared the area, didn’t they?’

‘And you’re happy about that?’ said Susan.

‘There is neither happiness nor unhappiness,’ replied the infantryrobot, ‘there is just Artemis.’

‘They’re laying the lines into the animals’ base,’ said Susan. ‘You could see them putting down the ballast from the Basilica.’

They picked their way through the streets, the yellow flares and lights not quite holding back the darkness of the old buildings, the march and stamp and hurry of the troops not quite dispelling the feeling of stillness around them. In the distance, rising over the other buildings, Susan caught sight of the tops of the two shot towers.

‘Why do they keep this place standing?’ she asked. ‘It seems so out of place, here in the middle of Artemis City. Surely there is no sentimentality for the past in Nyro’s world?’

‘None,’ said Spoole. ‘This is where the unfused and the half-fused work. Robots that live indefinitely. They serve their purpose. But this place shrinks a little every year, as we find new ways to do things. Down here.’

He led her down a narrow side street. Ahead of them was a small building, one storey high, barely big enough to hold a family forge. Its red-brick walls were dark and shiny in the dim light. It had no other features save for a plain steel door and a small smoking chimney. The other buildings around it were taller, they seemed to have edged away from it, their windows gazed distrustfully at their smaller cousin.

‘What is it?’ asked Susan.

‘The database,’ said Spoole. Susan followed him to the door. She noticed how well trodden the cobbled road was; there was a smooth path worn into the round stones, heading for the door ahead.

‘There is frequent talk about shutting this place down, of recycling the metal that lies inside, but they have yet to come up with a better way of storing records.’ Spoole laughed suddenly, a hollow sound in that still place. ‘Who knows, the database may outlast even Artemis City. All that we have been will still be recorded here, even when the rest of the metal of Artemis is spun into shape and carried to the stars by the animals.’

And at that he knocked upon the steel door. There was no handle, Susan noticed.

‘Open up,’ he commanded. ‘It’s Spoole!’

For a moment, Susan wondered if Spoole would be obeyed. What would he do if not, she wondered? The door without a handle was pushed open from inside and Susan looked into a single room, dimly lit by a yellow bulb. A Storm Trooper waited there, body humming with power.

‘Hello, Spoole.’

‘Hello, Geraint.’

Susan followed Spoole inside. She felt trapped in this tiny space, she wanted to be safely outside, under the bright stars that filled the night above.

‘You bring an infantryrobot, Spoole? That’s not allowed.’ He looked at Susan. ‘Wait outside.’

Susan looked coolly back at the Storm Trooper, intimidated though she was by his heavy black body. She could feel his current even from here.

‘I am leader of this city,’ said Spoole. ‘Stand aside.’

‘A leader of the city,’ said Geraint, but he stood aside anyway. Behind him a set of iron steps spiralled into the ground.

‘How many people are down there at the moment?’ asked Spoole.

‘Only a couple of filing clerks. Things have been quiet since the animals arrived. Who wants to look to the past, when the future is setting up base right outside the city?’

‘Who indeed?’ said Spoole.

With the tap, tap, tap of metal feet on iron treads, he began to descend the stairs.

‘Haven’t we met before?’ said the Storm Trooper, looming over Susan. ‘You’re a conscript. I can tell. What body did you used to wear?’

Susan had a memory of the making rooms, kneeling before robots like this. Had she made a child with him? The thought filled her with loathing.

‘Aren’t we all Artemisians?’ she replied, following Spoole down the steps, resisting the urge to strike the huge black brute.

The steps spiralled through three turns and deposited Susan in a brick room, about the same size as the one above. There were two facing doorways leading through to similar rooms. An iron pipe led from a small stove up into the ceiling. A robot stood in the middle of the space, eyes glowing a weak grey. Unfused, she realized. Here was a robot whose mother had tied the end of its mind into a knot, making a mind doomed neither to die in forty short years nor to ever properly think or feel.

‘Nettie,’ said Spoole. ‘We’re looking for a robot named Nettie.’

The robot pointed to the right-hand door.

‘If that robot exists, its record will be through that door.’ The robot lowered its head, losing all interest in them.

Spoole was already walking through the right-hand door. Susan followed to find a similar room with two more exits, this time, though, one went down another set of stairs. A second unfused robot waited. It looked up as Spoole approached.

‘We’re looking for a robot named Nettie.’

‘If that robot exists, its record will be down the steps,’ replied the robot, pointing. Spoole was already descending. She followed him, only to see the robot in the next room pointing down once more.

‘How far down does this go?’ she called.

‘I’ve heard fifteen levels,’ said Spoole.

Susan calculated.

‘That’s 32, 768 robots down here. That is if this is a true binary tree we’re traversing. That’s almost as many robots as lived in Turing City!’

‘There are only three hundred and two, I think,’ said Spoole. ‘Each node robot holds several thousand records in their mind.’ He was facing another unfused robot now. ‘I’m looking for a robot named Nettie,’ he said.

‘If that robot exists, it will be through that door.’

They followed the direction that was indicated, and continued their descent beneath the Half-fused City.

Back in Turing City, Susan had been a statistician. She understood that she was walking through a concrete example of what she had previously thought of as an abstract concept. Artemis City had made a binary tree. She imagined a robot walking from the Main Index, carrying foil sheets to this building. She imagined the information it brought being passed down the tree of robots buried beneath the ground, each sending the sheet left or right depending on where it lay in the index. A tree. Susan had seen branching examples of organic life named after this structure.

‘This is bizarre, Spoole. Are you always so literal in this city?’

‘I don’t understand what you mean.’

‘Do you build every abstract idea you come across?’

Spoole still didn’t understand. ‘Everything that Artemis has done ends up here eventually,’ he said.

Down and along they went, traversing the data construct. Robot after robot pointed across or down, and they followed the direction indicated. Every so often they passed a little stove, its chimney leading up to the ceiling, and Susan guessed this was where the robots repaired themselves. And then, something new. Piles of soil in the corners of the room. Stacks of fresh bricks.

‘They build new rooms as the database gets bigger?’ she wondered aloud.

‘It used to be once every few years. Now it’s once every six months. The rate of Artemis’s expansion increases.’

‘We’re coming to the end.’

‘Inevitably. The newest data is stored at the farthest nodes.’

Susan moved deeper into the earth, the piles of bricks became more frequent, until eventually they stood before a robot, its body shiny and freshly made.

‘I’m looking for a robot named Nettie,’ said Spoole.

The robot gazed back with its grey eyes. Susan felt the current build within her muscles. The unfused robot spoke.

‘I know of three robots by that name,’ it said. ‘Scout, Infantry-robot and Making Room.’

‘She worked in the making rooms!’ said Susan eagerly.

‘Making Room,’ said Spoole.

‘Nettie,’ said the robot. ‘Mother Kinsle, Father Jaman. Constructed in-’

‘Hold,’ said Spoole. ‘I don’t want her history. Where is she now?’

‘Assigned to Making Room 14, temporarily seconded to Barrack 245, awaiting transfer to Aleph Base pending its construction by the animals.’

‘What?’ said Susan. ‘They’re sending her to the humans? Why?’

The unfused robot said nothing, just stared forward with those dull grey eyes.

Spoole spoke.

‘State her new assignment.’

‘Nettie is to commence training of batch Aleph of the new mothers of Artemis under the direction of the animals.’

‘What?’ Susan looked at Spoole, eyes burning brightly.

Spoole said nothing. He was gazing at the unfused robot, his eyes glowing brightly.’

‘What, Spoole? What is it?’

‘Sandale! Don’t you see what he’s done? He’s a traitor!’

‘Traitor to Artemis? Good!’

‘Don’t be so stupid! Do you think the animals will still have to deal with Artemis City when they have robots with minds woven to serve them directly? Sandale has betrayed Nyro!’

‘All for a few tons of metal?’ said Susan.

‘This isn’t Nyro’s way,’ said Spoole, his voice crackling with static. ‘This isn’t about Artemis, this isn’t about Kavan, this is about robots keeping themselves in power by any means! This is what happens when robots’ minds are woven to think of leadership above all else!’

He was so angry, Susan could feel the flash of current through his electromuscles, see the way his eyes were glowing.

‘This is wrong!’ he said. ‘I have been distracted, I’ve allowed Sandale and the rest to cloud my thoughts! Sulking down here when I should have been out in the city, alerting the true Artemisians to what was happening!’

He looked around the small room. He looked down at his own body.

‘I should be out there with Kavan, helping him to fight against this heresy, not standing here in this over-styled body, of no use to anyone but myself.’

‘Okay,’ said Susan, frightened by his sudden passion, nervous to be so far underground, trapped in the middle of the city. ‘Let’s get out of here then. Let’s go and find Kavan.’

‘Yes,’ said Spoole. He made to climb the metal steps to the next level, and then paused. Susan heard it too: the sound of more feet on steps, the sound of voices.

‘This way!’ shouted someone. ‘Down this way! Spoole is trapped!’

The clock tower in the centre of Stark rose to nearly eight hundred feet. Kavan could see it in the distance, rising over the horizon, and he wondered why Artemis had left it in place when they conquered that state. It served no purpose now. Back when Stark was an independent force, it had spread its influence throughout eastern Shull by ensuring each town and village had its own timepiece. It was a form of control far more subtle than that practised by Artemis City, but just as effective.

Kavan had passed through many villages on his way here, each with their brick clock tower empty and broken or turned to the business of Artemis. No longer did every town click and advance to the radio-synchronized tick of the Stark clocks. But then again, nor did they move to the glory of Nyro and the advancement of the Artemisian State.

Out here towards the eastern coast the land turned to rocky rills wound with rivers of sand and gravel. The Artemisians had laid railway lines that followed the lie of the land. Those railway lines were now subtly altered.

‘The humans have done a lot of work in a very little time,’ said Ada.

‘I don’t think so,’ said Calor. ‘They were here already. The animals were in Shull before they came to Artemis City. I’ve spoken to the other robots from round here.’

‘Spoole and the General must have given them this land as a staging post,’ said Kavan.

‘There was an Artemisian refinery to the east,’ said Calor. ‘The humans have taken it over. They must have been there for some weeks. You can see the changes they’ve made to it. They’ve modified the railway lines out here too. Straightened their courses.’

‘Then the fact they have been here for some time makes me feel a little happier,’ said Ada. ‘Perhaps they are not so different to us.’

‘What do they use the railway lines for?’ asked Kavan

‘They’re taking refined oil to Artemis City. Their trains can move at incredible speeds.’

‘They plan well,’ said Kavan. ‘They’re not stupid.’

‘Train approaching now,’ said Calor.

‘I can hear it,’ said Kavan. That high-pitched whistle. He could see it, too. So much metal moving through an electrical field, it lit up in a rainbow of colours, an elongated raindrop that drew a shrieking line across the countryside.

‘It’s the way they put all their technology on display,’ he mused. ‘Don’t they realize what they are doing?’

‘I don’t think they do,’ said Ada. ‘But they think so very differently to us. Comes of being organic, I would guess, comes of being a statistical fluke. They don’t design themselves, like we do. They accept the good and the bad in their bodies, they can’t omit the flaws when they make themselves, like a robot would.’

‘I know,’ said Kavan. ‘But look at that. How can they be so stupid and so clever at the same time? It’s like they’ve handed us a loaded gun.’

And then the train was upon them. It made far less noise than Kavan had expected, so smoothly did it cut through the air. There was virtually no engine noise, just that shrill whistling.

‘If only I could examine one of those motors,’ said Ada wistfully. ‘It’s impossible to stop one of those trains without destroying it. They move so fast. And as for the fuel it’s carrying…’

There was a zip and the train passed. The engineer followed its course, thinking.

‘No,’ said Ada. ‘We don’t need it. We can make a good enough copy for our own purposes.’

‘Very well,’ said Kavan.

‘Okay, time to get down there.’

Ada and her engineers were up and gone. Four of them ran down the tracks, measuring, touching the rails, looking up at the wires that looped overhead, talking all the while. Calor stalked up and down the gravel nearby, kicking stones, expending the energy that constantly built up within her.

‘Okay!’ called Ada. ‘Bring it down.’

It took four engineers to carry the device down to the tracks. They pointed its nose towards distant Artemis City.

‘Nice and straight,’ said Ada. ‘A good test.’

Twenty minutes until the next train. More than enough time.

‘Do you think it will work?’ called Calor, skittish with underuse.

‘It doesn’t matter what I think,’ said Kavan. ‘I’m not an engineer.’

They looked down at the device Ada and her team had put together. It was about as long as two robots lying end to end, and shaped like the blade of a knife.

‘Ada, I’m impressed,’ said Kavan. ‘Barely two weeks since you first saw a flying machine, and already you’ve built this.’

‘We wondered whether to place the eyes on top or underneath,’ said Ada, modestly, as she lifted a flap and adjusted a lever inside. ‘In the end we put them below. We thought that it could watch the ground, fly closer to it that way.’

Kavan crouched down to look under the machine. He saw two blue eyes there, midway along the smooth underside of the device.

‘The engine design is our own. We tried to copy the animals’ designs, but there are too many unknowns. We can’t make the alloys they can, we can’t refine fuel so well.’

‘Are they cleverer than us, Ada?’

‘I don’t think so. But they’ve had to work harder than we have to stay alive. They’ve needed to develop faster than us: they are such fragile creatures.’

‘Perhaps,’ said Kavan, and he looked once more at the device. ‘Still, you’ve done well. Out here on the plain, constantly moving, and you manage to build this.’

‘That’s the difference between us and the animals,’ said Ada. ‘I’ve been thinking about it. Animals need food and water. They will naturally congregate around sources of both. Rivers, fields. They will stay there, like young robots around the family forge. You’ve heard what the Scouts say. The animals have set up base near Artemis City.’

Kavan said nothing, but he was surprised. It was unusual for an engineer to even notice a Scout, never mind listen to what they had to say. Things were changing…

‘Well, there could be good reasons for that.’

‘Maybe there are, Kavan. You should know, you’re the leader, you’re the strategist. But staying in one place has never been your tactic, has it? You’re constantly on the move, constantly on the attack. If you’d landed on this planet you’d be halfway across the continent by now, making new soldiers as you went.’

‘Maybe…’

‘Look at us! They chased us away from Artemis City. You didn’t make a new base, you spread out your army! All those little cells across the land, planning, moving, waiting for the next assault.’

‘You understand that, Ada?’ said Kavan in surprise. ‘You can see that?’

‘Why not? The animals are here, and there are a whole set of new engineering problems to think about. Isn’t it great?’

Kavan gazed at her. Sometimes he just didn’t know what other robots were thinking.

‘Ten minutes to the train,’ said Calor, still dancing back and forth. Kavan looked at the blunt arrow shape, lying on the tracks. ‘Has your device seen enough?’

‘I think so,’ said Ada.

‘Okay. Let’s go,’ said Kavan. ‘We don’t want the animals to get suspicious. Keep moving, keep preparing.’ He looked at the device.

‘Is it ready? Can we send the plans to the other engineers?’

‘I think so,’ said Ada.

‘Yes!’ shouted Calor, swiping her blades through the air.

‘Take Mivan’s mind,’ said Ada. ‘He’s got as good an understanding as anyone.’

Mivan knelt down and another engineer carefully removed his mind from his blue body. He handed it to Calor, who turned without a word and sped off south, heading to another of the small groups that were dotted around the border of the Artemisian plain.

‘What about Artemis City?’ asked Ada. ‘Are you sure about them?’

‘Oh yes,’ said Kavan, watching Mivan’s former body being disassembled by the other engineers. They stored the parts in the large bags they carried around with them. ‘You know machines, Ada, I know war. There will be many robots in Artemis City who are unhappy about the animals. Some of them will follow us when the time comes.’

‘I hope there will be enough.’

Susan

The sound of stamping feet came closer. Suddenly they halted, and a voice called out.

‘Spoole! We have an order for your arrest, authorized by General Sandale. You are hereby charged with treason against the Artemisian State.’

‘Fools!’ said Spoole. ‘There’s only one way out of this place. They should have waited at the top for us, and then captured us as we left!’

‘What are we to do?’ asked Susan, terrified.

‘Use our minds.’

Spoole was already setting off up the stairs, heading towards the troops.

‘Fools,’ he repeated, eyes glowing with anger. ‘This is what comes of never having fought for yourself!’

Up another flight of steps, the sound of voices and feet coming closer, and then, just when Susan thought she would meet their pursuers, Spoole headed into a side room and descended the steps in there, following a different branch of the binary tree.

‘Quiet!’ he said, holding up a warning finger.

Susan listened as the sound of footsteps came closer.

‘We’re looking for a robot named Nettie!’

She heard the colourless reply. ‘If that robot exists, its record will be down those steps.’

They heard the clattering of footsteps receding.

‘They know about Nettie!’ said Spoole. ‘The Storm Trooper must have overheard us. Now, quietly!’

Susan and Spoole retraced their steps, heading back to the surface, ears turned up full to listen for steps behind them, steps ahead of them. Spoole spoke so softly that Susan only heard the buzzing as she touched his metal shell.

‘So stupid,’ he kept repeating. ‘So, so stupid!’

The unfused robots watched in silence as they passed, their grey eyes showing no interest or curiosity. The brickwork became older as they approached the surface. Spoole paused, listening.

‘No one behind us,’ he said. ‘Only Geraint ahead. Come on.’

He climbed the last set of steps, up to the top. Geraint was waiting, rifle pointed at Spoole.

‘You summoned them,’ said Spoole. He sounded more disappointed than anything else.

‘Sorry, Spoole. I was ordered to report if you ever came here.’

‘Do you know what they’re doing, Geraint? They are weaving robot minds to serve the animals. They are weaving minds that do not follow Nyro!’

Geraint hesitated.

‘It’s true,’ said Susan. ‘Go downstairs and ask the robot!’

‘I’m sorry, Spoole. I am woven to be loyal to Nyro.’

‘Loyal to Nyro, or loyal to the leaders of Artemis?’

Geraint thought about it.

‘The second one.’

‘That was a mistake.’ Spoole looked at Susan. ‘We have got things so badly wrong.’ He turned back to the Storm Trooper, powerful black hands gripping the rifle. The bullet in there would pierce his skull and expand inside his mind, melting the wire as it tore it apart. ‘What are your orders, Geraint?’

‘Arrest you. If you resist arrest, I’m to kill you.’

‘No, I can’t let you do that! Come with me, Geraint, and hear the truth.’

‘I’m sorry, Spoole.’

Geraint raised the gun.

‘Your leaders never fought in battles, Geraint, you know that?’

‘That doesn’t matter.’

‘It does, Geraint. They’d have known never to give a robot a rifle in room as small as this.’

Spoole simply stepped forward, within the length of the barrel.

‘I’m still stronger than you, Spoole.’

‘But I was made to fight, as well as lead.’ He slammed a hand forward into Geraint’s chest, slammed the other up under the robot’s chin. ‘Knock your gyros out of sync for a moment,’ he said, as Geraint wobbled unsteadily on his feet, and he snatched the rifle from his hands, placed the stock on the floor, the barrel pointing up beneath Geraint’s chin, and fired. Blue wire expanded, slippery and sparking. Susan felt the percussion of the shot rattling inside her head: her ears were still turned up to their fullest extent.

‘Sorry, Geraint,’ said Spoole. Below them they could hear the pounding of feet. The other soldiers were coming towards them.

‘Now what?’ said Susan. Spoole told her what to do.

Susan flung open the door to the database. Three infantry-robots waited outside under the bright stars.

‘This way!’ she called.

The infantryrobots saw her grey body, saw she was one of their own, and ran into the building.

‘Down there,’ called Susan, pointing down the steps. She watched as they vanished from sight. Spoole emerged from the other branch of the tree.

‘Made to lead,’ said Spoole, emerging into the night. ‘Strategy. It’s all about strategy.’

‘Well done,’ said Susan with grudging admiration. ‘Where now?’

‘Barrack 245. Find Nettie and the rest. Get the proof. Raise an army and throw these animals out of the city.’

‘What about the Generals?’ asked Susan.

‘I was talking about the Generals,’ said Spoole.

Calor couldn’t help herself. She would run ahead of Kavan, then turn and wait for him to catch up. As soon as he reached her she was off again, another couple of hundred yards. Kavan hurried along behind her, his feet kicking loose stones into the little stream.

‘Not far,’ she said. ‘Just around the bend.’

Kavan respected the animals. They didn’t think like robots, it was true, but they had established themselves upon Shull with a ruthless logic he admired.

Their main base was close to Artemis City, but not too close. Any enemies approaching them would be seen from miles away across the plain, then either picked off by the Artemisians or the humans in their flying craft. Kavan hadn’t actually seen the human base, hiding as he was amongst the broken landscape near Stark, but he had had it described to him by Scouts and engineers who had observed it from as close as they could manage, dodging the Artemisian patrols and hiding from the craft that criss-crossed the sky.

The base was well constructed, he understood. Two gigantic craft, surrounded by a perimeter of guns that moved of their own accord, turning to fire at robots that came too close. Even the Artemisians didn’t dare approach those guns: the plain was littered with the shattered metal remains of the bodies of robots that had gone too close. So much metal left to go to waste was unheard of in Artemis.

Several buildings had already been constructed within the compound, and it was Kavan’s understanding that the perimeter of the base was expanding as time passed and more and more materials were brought into the base. Materials taken from Shull.

Two railway lines led into the animals’ camp; they drew up alongside long platforms lined with cranes and other paraphernalia used to unload and load the trains that constantly ran back and forth between the camp and Artemis City.

Kavan had thought of a possible weakness at this point, he had asked his Scouts for further information. Two of them had died – picked off as they crossed the plain by missiles fired from high above – in order to bring Kavan the answer. The humans were well ahead of Kavan: the Scouts had confirmed that there were many guns at the point where the railway lines pierced the camp. Furthermore, their placement showed they were ready to be turned upon the trains, or indeed in the direction of Artemis City, should the current alliance break down.

‘This way, this way,’ said Calor, running back to meet him.

‘I can’t keep my feet on this loose stone like you can,’ said Kavan, stumbling on a loose gravel bank. Stark had stripped this land of metal with devastating efficiency. The ground was a maze of pits and broken rubble, criss-crossed by hard packed roads. It was a great place to hide out, a difficult place to traverse.

‘Nearly there!’

Yes, Kavan respected the animals. Yet he felt disgusted by them at the same time. They were so fragile. The robots had captured only three of them, so far as he knew, and each one of them had been broken and accidentally killed by its captors. The first had been trapped in the wreckage of a crashed flying craft. The Scout that had found it had cut off its limbs and lower torso to drag it free. According to her account, the creature had screamed horribly as she did this, and had sent masses of red fluid squirting in all directions before it had died.

A second pair had been captured almost immediately afterwards. They had been cut from their craft intact, and then sealed in an oil container whilst Kavan was sent for. It was a good plan; the idea had been the steel of the container would block any signals the prisoners might try to send to searching humans. Unfortunately, by the time Kavan had arrived there, the creatures were dead, their skin turned a strange blue colour, at least those parts that hadn’t been burned red on contact with the hot metal, heated by the sun.

It was only after the second fatalities that Kavan had sent out a message asking for advice on the handling of animals. The advice that came back to him from the Wieners and the few conscripts from the Northern Kingdoms made him more aware than ever just how feeble these humans were. They needed water, grass and leaves to consume, they had to be kept within a narrow temperature range, they had to be exposed to the air. They couldn’t be punctured, they couldn’t be disassembled in any way. It made Kavan wonder if they were worth the bother.

But he persevered, and when the message came through that two Scouts had finally managed to capture an animal on the ground, one that had walked over a hundred yards from its flying craft, trusting to what turned out to be a faulty robot detector, Kavan had come running.

The animal had been hurried from the site of the craft by the two Scouts. They had followed standing orders and cut from the creature anything plastic or metal, all the while being careful not pierce any part of its fleshy body.

They had then led it at blade point across the rocky land to an old Stark village, abandoned after the invasion by Artemis over ten years ago. Kavan had been lucky; he was only fifty miles away at the time. He had immediately begun to travel towards the captive, hoping to reach it before the fragile creature died. It had taken him nearly two days, cutting across the broken ground, hiding from the aircraft that swooped back and forth over the land, desperately seeking their fallen comrade, but now Kavan was almost there. He could see, rising from behind the low hill ahead, the broken tower that would once have housed the village’s clock.

‘Come on, Kavan! Come on!’

Calor was singing with impatience, singing with too much current. Kavan slipped on broken stones as he made his way around the hillside and, finally, he was there.

The village was built of the incredibly hard, shiny red bricks that only Stark had been able to produce. Any metal had long been stripped away, but the robots of Stark built equally well with stone and metal alike. Tiled roofs remained intact, clear glass windows still stared at Kavan after all these years.

‘In there, in there!’ Calor was dancing, pointing.

Kavan passed through an empty doorway, the missing door no doubt now part of a robot or some other piece of machinery employed by Artemis, and he found himself in a dark space.

‘No lights in here: turn your eyes up!’

Kavan did so. Two infantryrobots and an engineer stood nearby. And beyond them…

‘Don’t come too close yet, Kavan!’ warned one. ‘Your body will still be hot from the sun! You’ll burn it!’

Finally, Kavan found himself face to face with an animal.

It was female. Kavan was surprised, but he could tell by looking that the creature was female. It was something to do with the shape of the body. She was looking at him with her blue eyes. She was frightened, Kavan could tell, but who could blame her for that? She was a fighter, though. Kavan recognized a kindred spirit, and he wondered that a creature so different, so alien, could have something in common with himself.

‘Hello,’ he said. ‘My name is Kavan.’

The creature unleashed a string of gibberish. Kavan watched her pink mouth moving, saw the pink thing inside darting around as she shaped words with air and flesh.

‘Why can’t she speak properly?’ he asked. ‘Is she damaged?’

‘I don’t know,’ said the engineer. ‘I don’t think so. If you listen carefully there is a pattern to what she says, like she’s communicating, but with a different… protocol to the one which we use.’

‘But why speak in a different way to us?’

Kavan was mystified. Speech was speech. It was one of the signs of an intelligent mind, that it could communicate with another.

‘I don’t know. Stefan here has a theory that maybe speech isn’t woven directly into their minds as it is with robot children.’

Kavan thought about it.

‘It sounds plausible. But how are we going to communicate with her?’

‘I’ve been working on that. Watch.’

He held up a hand.

‘Hello,’ he said.

‘He-shhh,’ replied the female.

‘She can’t make the feedback sound,’ explained the engineer. ‘Obviously her voicebox is organic, not electronic.’ He turned back to the female.

‘My name is Valve,’ he said, placing his hand on his chest.

‘Me shhh issh Luphanshh,’ said the female, copying his gesture.

‘Sounds a bit like Luvan,’ said Karel. ‘That’s an Artemisian name.’

The female was still speaking. She was holding her hand to her mouth, the fingers curved, tilting her head back.

‘That means she wants water,’ said Valve. ‘I sent the Scout to get some. She’s fussy. Seawater is no good; it has to be from the stream.’

‘Okay.’ Kavan gazed at the creature, weighing it up.

‘Four of you looking after her, the humans constantly searching for her. I wonder if it’s worth the effort to keep her?’

‘Oh yes, Kavan, I’m sure it is. There is so much to learn.’

‘In other circumstances I may agree with you. I came fifty miles hoping to question this creature, and now I find that I can’t. The longer we hold her in one place, the more likely the animals will find her. We can’t take her out of here now; they would spot her in minutes. You know, we would do better examining her body, learning how it works. We’ve never had a whole one before.’

The creature was looking at him. Her blue eyes were wider, he could see the whites around them.

‘She knows,’ said Kavan. ‘Look at her; she knows what we’re talking about.’

Kavan wasn’t cruel, it wasn’t woven into him. He was merely ruthless. ‘I should make a decision quickly,’ he said. ‘To do otherwise would needlessly prolong this creature’s agony.’

‘Give me a day,’ pleaded Valve. ‘I’m sure I can find out something of worth.’

‘Like what? How the flying craft work? I have engineers that can do that. What their plans are? We know that. They will continue to expand across Shull. I’ve already wasted two days on this. Kill her and put her out of her misery.’

‘No!’ said Valve. ‘They’re different when they’re dead. They’re not like robots! You don’t understand, the whole body just stops working when the mind dies. I need to examine her whilst she’s still alive. Let me block the mouth so she can’t make any noise. I can cut her open, see how the parts move.’

Kavan held the creature’s eye. She did know, she had some inkling about what was being said. She was terrified, and yet, she was fighting not to show it. He admired that.

‘No,’ said Kavan. ‘That would be too cruel. We’re robots, not animals. We kill for a reason, and we do it quickly. We don’t torture. Shoot her in the head, do it fast so she doesn’t know.’

One of the infantryrobots raised its rifle and fired. Grey gel, streaked with red, splattered over Kavan’s body. The dead creature slumped to the ground.

‘It’s a pity,’ said Kavan, stirring one of the creature’s legs with his foot. ‘Maybe later there will be a time to get to know more about them, once we’ve regained control of Artemis City.’

‘If we regain control,’ said Valve. He looked wistfully at the dead creature. ‘I would have like to have spoken some more.’

He brightened up.

‘Still, at least now we get to take a look inside a healthy one.’

Kavan began to wipe the grey gel from his body.

‘What now?’ asked Calor.

‘I think it’s time,’ said Kavan. ‘We’ve spent enough time here on the periphery.’

He looked down at the dead animal. Strange to think that something so soft could cause so much trouble.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I think it’s time to return to Artemis City. Send out the word.’

The evening sky was flushing a deep red: it was the colour of the forge reflected on the roof of the world. The world was warping all around him, its struts and beams under pressure from the animals who had come from the stars.

The city was a slowly heating pyre, out there in the hot summer countryside robots were being moved to rebellion.

Wa-Ka-Mo-Do watched as the lake turned black, saw the red fire withdraw as the sun set behind the city.

The night was approaching.

Even as he waited for the enemy, there on the dark terrace, the stars switching on above him, even as felt the fear that hummed in the city below, even as he struggled with that mix of boredom and anticipation of the coming attack, even then Wa-Ka-Mo-Do still found the human guns incredibly erotic.

There was something about the machinery, the way the impossibly smooth metal slipped seamlessly together, the dark sheen of the alien alloy, the way that it shimmered in star light as if it were slicked in oil. Wa-Ka-Mo-Do had touched a barrel, revelled guiltily in the sleek smoothness, the absolutely zero static charge. What was it about these weapons? Did the humans deliberately build them to look so feminine? Were they even aware of what they had done? Wa-Ka-Mo-Do doubted it. It was obvious that the humans had little regard for what robots thought.

The land seemed darker in contrast to the brilliance of the rising moon, but the lake… The lake reflected the universe in curdled white clouds. Wa-Ka-Mo-Do looked at the stars, shining in the water. That was where the humans had come from, he thought. What else lurked out there? For that matter, what else was lurking here on Penrose, just beyond the horizons? The robots of Yukawa had lived in splendid isolation for so long. Now the universe had come looking for them.

He wondered how La-Ver-Di-Arussah and Ka-Lo-Re-Harballah were getting on. He had sent them down into the city to try and calm the population. The streets below sounded quiet for the moment, but he knew that wouldn’t last with La-Ver-Di-Arussah down there. Still, if she had remained up here the two of them would probably be fighting each other by now.

It was peaceful for the moment, though. An island of calm under the stars. Somewhere out there humans were grouping to attack. Land ploughed up and covered in alien crops that poisoned the native life of Yukawa was being trodden by robots speaking openly of rebellion. And here he stood, in this square with humans on one hand and robots on the other, and somewhere in the Copper Master’s house Li-Kallalla would be piecing together the parts of the radio, and for the moment keeping quiet about what he, Wa-Ka-Mo-Do, had done. How long would this suspended moment last? He was happy to have nothing for company but these darkly fascinating machines, singing with that strange alien electricity.

The guns suddenly raised themselves into the air and turned as one to face the same direction. A rapid pumping sound started up. There was remarkably little noise, it was almost a rippling of the air, but Wa-Ka-Mo-Do saw the electromagnetic field formed by so much metal being sprayed through the planet’s own magnetic field. Orange light flared, out there in the distance of the night. The firing ceased, the guns turned their heads a little and then immediately resumed. Another orange explosion. The guns moved once more. Something was coming out of the night, so fast that one of the guns set up by the Copper Master’s house was cut neatly in half. Now it was the turn of the house itself. Tiles shattered in a line of destruction that snapped off as suddenly as it had begun. The guns were firing once more, pointing at the third orange explosion lit up in the distance.

After that the guns seemed to lose interest, they lowered themselves, resting. Alien women, exotic and fascinating – they were moving! Up and turning to face the opposite direction, too late…

Wa-Ka-Mo-Do was tumbling over and over, clattering metal, scraping red paint on stone. The ground was shaking and cracking; Wa-Ka-Mo-Do’s vision was filled with static, he felt his thoughts fold themselves around each other for just a moment, felt time jump forward a few seconds, as he moved from a scene of motion, dust and stones and tiles sliding and shaking through the air, to one of stillness, of the world recast after the explosion; the rubble and debris settled.

‘What happened?’ He was speaking out loud, to whom he didn’t know.

The human guns were dancing around him, bobbing up and down in their bizarre dance, spinning this way and that, lighting up the sky in orange balls, lighting up the distant hills, the far horizons, casting deep, fiery reflections in the lake below.

Ka-Lo-Re-Harballah was running towards him, flanked by two humans, coolant water shining on their faces.

‘What have they done, Ka-Lo-Re-Harballah?’ cried Wa-Ka-Mo-Do. ‘What have they done to the Emperor’s city?’

‘Half the west side of the city is gone,’ said Ka-Lo-Re-Harballah. ‘The Street of Becoming is buried beneath the houses that once lined it, the human weapon pierced through to the rock below!’

Ka-Lo-Re-Harballah had lost most of the panelling from his body. His grey electromuscle was smeared in carbon: he sparked as he moved.

‘I’ve failed, Ka-Lo-Re-Harballah,’ said Wa-Ka-Mo-Do. ‘I’ve failed in my duty.’

‘No, Honoured Commander. The city still stands!’

From somewhere deep below them, half felt, half heard, came the sound of rock cracking, the shifting, sliding rumble as more of the city collapsed upon itself.

‘Wa-Ka-Mo-Do!’

He turned to see Gillian, the human commander. The green cloth panelling that she wore was torn, her headset crackled as she spoke.

‘They hit us with a mini-nuke, high radiation yield,’ she explained.

‘Do you understand those terms, Ka-Lo-Re-Harballah?’ asked Wa-Ka-Mo-Do.

‘No, Honoured Commander.’

‘I do. It means that robots minds are being affected.’

Gillian wiped a hand across her brow.

‘We’re evacuating this city. There’s a shuttle dropping towards us right now, we need to get all the humans up to this square so they can board it!’

Wa-Ka-Mo-Do was watching the human cannon, leaping and spinning all around him.

‘Your guns seem to be holding off the enemy,’ he observed.

‘They will,’ said Gillian. ‘It’s the radiation that’s the problem,’ her voice was still crackling. So was his own, he realized. ‘And they may try another mini-nuke: go for an airburst, though if they do that they will irradiate the land. There’ll be no crops here for-’

‘Damaging the land? This is the Emperor’s land.’

‘Not any more, Wa-Ka-Mo-Do, not any more.’ There was a sadness and finality in her words that the headset managed to translate.

‘Honoured Commander?’

Wa-Ka-Mo-Do realized he was still staring, lost in the motion of the guns.

‘Yes, Ka-Lo-Re-Harballah?’

‘Shall I help escort the humans up here to the terrace?’

‘Yes,’ said Wa-Ka-Mo-Do. ‘Yes, quickly.’

He heard, above the odd purring of the human guns, a new sound. One that was gaining in volume.

Wa-Ka-Mo-Do looked at Ka-Lo-Re-Harballah.

‘What is it, Honoured Commander?’

Wa-Ka-Mo-Do knew what the sound was.

‘Gunfire. Those are robot weapons. It’s finally happened. The rebellion has begun.’

‘We’re going out of our way,’ said Simrock. ‘The Northern Road will lead us into Raman.’

‘So?’ said Karel. ‘It’s easy to walk. Better to take our time leaving the mountains than to rush and fall to our deaths.’

‘No,’ said Simrock. ‘There is a better path. An older one. One from before the time that robots walked these mountains.’

‘How do you know?’ demanded Melt. ‘How do you know?’

‘He just does,’ said Karel. ‘The Spontaneous just do. He was right before, wasn’t he?’

‘Come on. Over this way.’

The Spontaneous robot stepped over the wall at the side of the road. He began to walk up a narrow ledge.

‘Hold on!’ called Karel. ‘What do you mean, before the time that robots walked these mountains. Who could have made the path?’

‘Robots, of course.’

He carried on, creeping along the ledge.

‘Do we follow him?’ Karel asked Melt.

‘For the moment.’

‘Are you sure? I thought you didn’t trust him.’

‘I don’t. But we said we would follow him.’

And at that Melt heaved himself onto the ledge and began to follow Simrock along it. Despite the weight of his body, he moved with surprising grace through the mountains. He seemed at home here, up amongst the sheer slopes that tilted their faces to the sky.

Karel was not so comfortable as he brought up the rear, edging along the narrow path. It turned a corner, and he took a last look back at the Northern Road before it was lost from view.

The trail they followed was ancient and strangely constructed. Karel wondered at the mindset of the robots who would build a path that sometimes climbed near vertical cliff faces, cutting grooves with which to pull themselves forwards. More than once Karel and Melt found themselves lying on their fronts, fumbling in the darkness for the grooves that had been carved into the rock so they could pull themselves forwards. Karel’s body was badly scratched and so full of grit: it constantly irritated his electro-muscle. As for Melt, he didn’t even have the comfort of looking forward to a chance to strip down and clean his body. Or was that such a comfort? It was all that Karel thought about now, and it made the irritation worse.