Blood and Iron

Still, they walked and climbed and crawled on, heading south all the while.

‘What was that?’ called Melt.

‘What was what?’

Karel was too busy keeping both hands on the rocks. Despite his heavy body, Melt leaned back, one hand and one foot wedged into a wall.

‘It’s Simrock. He’s speaking to himself. Is that what the Spontaneous do?’

‘Ruth?’ said Simrock. ‘That’s an unusual name. Where do you want to meet? The village? It’s not that far.’

‘What village?’ asked Melt.

‘It’s just around here!’

‘Who were you speaking to?’

‘I don’t know.’ Simrock didn’t seem concerned. ‘I can’t see anybody.’

Karel hurried to catch up.

‘What’s going on, Simrock?’

Simrock pointed. ‘There is a village just around this corner. I know it’s there!’

‘Who is Ruth?’ asked Melt.

But Simrock had already gone on ahead.

‘I knew it! Just here! Can you see it yet?’

‘No!’ called Melt.

‘He’s not speaking to us,’ said Karel.

They rounded a corner and halted, gazing down at the scene below in amazement.

Karel had never seen the village before, and yet he felt as if he knew it. He had the image woven into his mind, along with other tales and stories of childhood. This was how robots used to live, back before the villages had grown into towns and then states. Back when there was enough iron in the ground for all the robots on Penrose.

The village was a huddled collection of little circular buildings, all of the same basic design. Triangular sections of iron were riveted together to make bulging domes, which were fixed into place on stone foundations that rose to about the level of the knee. Flakes of orange rust peeled from the metal.

‘It’s not been abandoned for that long. No more than forty years, I would say.’ Karel looked around in wonder. ‘The village is set back on this ledge, it wouldn’t be visible from below, the rock is too shear above. But surely someone would have come up here?’

Melt said nothing, he pushed on, following Simrock towards the village. It was surrounded by a low stone wall; beyond the wall the ground was paved in wide, broken flags.

Karel followed him slowly, looking around in wonder. He felt as if he had stepped out of his own world and into another. At any moment he expected ancient robots to emerge from the antique buildings, waving to him with simply constructed limbs, peering at him through poorly focussed eyes. He imagined them coming forward and touching his body, admiring the metal, the smooth curves of its construction, scratched and damaged though it may be.

He heard Simrock’s voice, calling out.

‘Ruth? I’m here! Where are you?’

There was movement up ahead in the village. Two, three robots emerging from amongst the low, round buildings.

No, not robots! Karel halted in astonishment. Melt had recoiled, had clumsily assumed a fighting position.

They walked like robots, they had arms and faces like robots, but they weren’t made of metal. They were animals!

Once, when he was a young robot, Wa-Ka-Mo-Do’s father had taken him to visit a tanning factory. He had seen the dead bodies of the cattle, flayed of their skins, lying in a pile, waiting for processing. There was something so exotic and other about the shapes of their internal frameworks, their skeletons, yellow bones smooth and curving in that weird way that suggested intelligent design. But what robot mind would bend and deform a structure in this fashion he didn’t know.

‘You say that,’ his father had said, ‘but I think we could learn a lot from such constructions. The material is light, but it’s strong! Look at the way the curves give strength.’

Organic life was like that, reflected Wa-Ka-Mo-Do. It looked so flimsy and soft, like you could squash it with one hand. But look at the damage it caused…

The west side of Sangrel reminded him a little of the tanning yard. The buildings had lost their roofs, their tiles blown away or shattered. Only the metal skeletons remained, twisted and blackened and illuminated by the fires that still burned orange and white below. One row of houses had been cut lengthways by the explosion, the further half collapsed; flames could be seen flickering through the broken windows. And beyond there, the centre of the blast, a crater punched into the very rock of the city itself, molten rock glowing red at its heart. Wa-Ka-Mo-Do knew about atomic weapons. Those robots close to the blast would find their minds subtly altered, their life spans drastically reduced. Not that anyone would care.

Columns of smoke held up the starry sky, cold and aloof above the damaged city.

‘How many are dead?’ wondered Wa-Ka-Mo-Do aloud. As he spoke, the crackle of gunfire sounded once more. Instantly he moved, searching out the sound. ‘Over there,’ he pointed.

A bell tower, the cap lost in the explosion, the bell still tolling slowly as it swayed in the night, and there, silhouetted by orange flames, two robots, firing down at the lower end of the Street of Becoming. Wa-Ka-Mo-Do looked closer. There on the ground was La-Ver-Di-Arussah, directing her troops to fire back. Successfully. First one, then the other of the two robots fell, the bell still tolling all the while, metal bodies smashing to the ground, shattering into fragments. They wore pig-iron bodies: cheap metal was all the poor of Sangrel could afford.

More shots, from further away, and La-Ver-Di-Arussah turned her troops towards the new attackers. Wa-Ka-Mo-Do saw how the robots were massing, saw how they were approaching the Street of Becoming in ones and twos, silhouetted bodies clambering over the rubble, carrying knives and guns, rocks and stones and metal bars.

He became aware of the slow throb of other bells ringing, all over the city, and he realized that the steady pulse wasn’t the result of the after-effects of the explosion, but rather that the robots had picked up on that rhythm and had taken it for their own, a sign of their rising anger.

Now La-Ver-Di-Arussah and her troops were retreating, coming back towards Wa-Ka-Mo-Do.

‘We need to hold this gate,’ said Gillian, appearing at his side.

‘Get back!’ shouted Wa-Ka-Mo-Do, pushing her back with one hand as a bullet ricocheted from the wall nearby. More shots rang out. ‘Get back into the square, you idiot!’

‘Take your hands off me, robot!’

Gillian unholstered a pistol and raised it to eye level. She squeezed the trigger, and Wa-Ka-Mo-Do heard three faint pops as she fired at the nearest rebels.

‘Get yourself a proper weapon,’ she said, and she turned and stalked back into the safety of the square. She had a warrior’s temperament, if nothing else.

The steady tolling of the bells was rising in volume. It seemed to Wa-Ka-Mo-Do he could feel a pulse of electricity behind it; the long pent-up rage of the robots of Sangrel building up to discharge itself in one lightning burst.

La-Ver-Di-Arussah and her soldiers came running up.

‘They are approaching from every direction, Honoured Commander.’

‘What about Ka-Lo-Re-Harballah?’

‘He got through. The humans soldiers are already organising themselves, getting ready to escort the civilians up here.’

‘Good. We’ll help bring them to safety and then hold back the peasants until the humans have left. After that we will begin the job of restoring order to the city.’

‘Get the humans to shoot them all for us,’ said La-Ver-Di-Arussah. ‘It will come to the same thing in the end.’

Wa-Ka-Mo-Do said nothing. He couldn’t help thinking that she was right. Events had moved way beyond his control.

‘Get up to the square and organize a defence,’ he said.

‘Very well.’

‘We will do everything we can to help the humans. I want them out of my city as fast as possible.’

The slow tolling of the bells was increasing in volume, the fires burned on, the smoke climbed to the stars, cold and silent above. Wa-Ka-Mo-Do suddenly swept both his arms out wide, blades extended, expending so much built-up power in one crackling burst. He felt better for it. Centred, composed once more, he turned and made his way back up the hill to Smithy Square.

The humans had dragged one of their female guns to the top of the Street of Becoming. It sat there, looking down at him with that sleek, deadly expression.

‘What’s going on?’ asked Wa-Ka-Mo-Do.

‘We’ve reprogrammed it to only attack robots,’ said Gillian.

La-Ver-Di-Arussah was watching the gun with interest.

‘What about Ka-Lo-Re-Harballah?’ he shouted. ‘What about the rest of the escort who will be bringing the humans back up here?’

‘They’ll turn it off when our troops approach,’ said La-Ver-Di-Arussah.‘They’ll turn it off now,’ said Wa-Ka-Mo-Do coldly. ‘Gillian! Move this gun away. You will not harm my citizens!’

‘I thought they were the Emperor’s citizens?’

‘Rust the Emperor!’

The words were out before Wa-Ka-Mo-Do could stop them. A horrified silence fell between him and La-Ver-Di-Arussah. They gazed at each other, realizing that Wa-Ka-Mo-Do had crossed that final line. La-Ver-Di-Arussah recovered first.

‘Very well, Wa-Ka-Mo-Do, if that’s your wish.’ She wore a cold smile.

‘It’s not my wish,’ said Gillian. ‘The gun stays on. I will not jeopardize the safety of my people.’

‘Nor I mine,’ said Wa-Ka-Mo-Do.

‘You are outnumbered, Wa-Ka-Mo-Do,’ said Gillian. ‘Would you fight all my troops?’

Wa-Ka-Mo-Do looked around the green-clad humans, their guns swinging in his direction.

‘I think I would,’ said Wa-Ka-Mo-Do, blades extending at his hands and feet.

One of the humans did something, and the strange gun raised its head, turning round to face Wa-Ka-Mo-Do. They stood, gazing at each other. Wa-Ka-Mo-Do stared up into the round eye of the barrel.

‘Shall I tell them to arm it?’ asked Gillian, coolly.

To think was to move. He reached out, caught the human woman, pulled her before him, wrapped an arm around the middle of her soft body, placing her between himself and the gun.

‘Tell them,’ said Wa-Ka-Mo-Do.

They stood there, Wa-Ka-Mo-Do and Gillian, the female gun looking down at them, the slow tolling of bells pulsing in a night filled with the orange glow of burning, surrounded by bars of smoke, the stars cold above them. The human faltered first.

‘Turn it off,’ she said.

Simrock walked up to the leading animal.

‘Hello. Are you Ruth?’

The animal smiled.

‘I am! You must be Simrock! And who are your friends?’

‘This is Melt, and here comes Karel now.’

Karel came forward, looking at the animal in astonishment. She was female, he knew it. She looked so like a robot woman. Her pink animal body was stuffed inside a padded silver thing that enveloped her body. Now he was close to her he could see animal eyes behind the dark glasses that covered half her face, he noted the white grease smeared around the rim of her mouth. It was bright but cold up here, and he wondered if these animals were at the limits of their tolerance.

‘What are you doing here?’ asked Melt, suspicion hard in his voice. ‘Where are the rest of you?’

‘Melt, what’s the matter with you?’ said Karel. The animals unnerved him, the way they walked like robots, but so did Melt’s attitude. He had never seen the robot so angry before.

‘There are just the three of us,’ said Ruth, answering Melt. She wore something over her head. A little light flickered as she spoke. ‘I’m Ruth Powdermaker. The guy with the big feet is Brian Kovacs and the pretty young woman is Jasprit Begum.’ The two other animals smiled as their names were mentioned. The male one waved a hand in greeting. ‘We’re .’

Karel heard the sound of the word as it emerged from her mouth, wet and hissing.

‘I’m sorry, there seems to be no robot equivalent. We study groups of people.’

‘Did you make that talking machine?’ said Karel.

‘Never mind that,’ interrupted Melt. ‘Where are your weapons?’

‘Here,’ said Ruth, patting a holster at her side. ‘Plus, Brian’s got a rifle packed away on board the ship. But they’re only for our own protection. We’re not part of the group on the plain. We’re here purely for research.’

‘Research into what?’

‘Life here on this planet. Contact with humans will change your society. It’s already happening. We want to try and capture all that we can about conditions before we arrived. That’s why we’re up here. Plus, there are so many of the Spontaneous here.’

They all looked at Simrock.

‘How were you speaking to him?’ asked Karel.

‘I hear her voice,’ said Simrock. ‘Like when I was below the ground.’

The animal called Jasprit was carefully examining Simrock’s head. What was she looking for?

‘And is that normal?’ asked Ruth. ‘Is that what you all experience?’

She was gazing at Karel.

‘Hearing voices?’ he said. ‘No. Only the Spontaneous can do that.’

‘Is that right, Melt?’ asked Jasprit. She was smaller than the other two, her body a darker colour. Her eyes were dark and bright. Melt looked at her with undisguised hostility.

‘I don’t know anything about the Spontaneous. And I don’t know anything about the three of you, either. Karel, I think we should go. Now.’

‘Why?’

‘Look at this place. These buildings. And then these humans turn up here.’ Karel had never heard the word before, but Melt said human in the same way he might say rust. ‘I say we go. Now.’

‘The buildings!’ said Brian with the big feet. ‘They’re strange, aren’t they? Not at all like the other ones we’ve seen here. Why is that do you suppose?’

‘Why do you keep asking all these questions?’

‘Melt!’ Karel looked at the big robot in astonishment. ‘What’s the matter with you?’

‘These animals. Don’t trust them.’

‘You’re suspicious. I can understand that,’ said Ruth. ‘Have you met humans before, Melt? We’re not all the same, you know. We’re not like those down on the plain.’

‘You mentioned that before,’ said Karel. ‘What do you mean, the ones on the plain?’

‘There is a big robot state to the south of these mountains. It controls the southern part of this continent. Do you know of it?’

‘Artemis!’ said Karel.

‘Of course he knows Artemis, Ruth.’ Brian stepped forward, and Karel noted the cloth panelling that covered him was streaked with grease and oil. ‘He’s wearing the body of one of their soldiers. Are you part of that state, Karel?’

‘Me? No. They destroyed my home. Have you heard of Turing City?’

‘Turing City? No. Where is that located? If I showed you a map, could you tell me? I’ll just be a moment?’

Karel looked around in bewilderment as Brian dashed off around the side of one of the old-fashioned buildings.

‘We could follow him,’ said Ruth. ‘There is an open area in the centre of this village where we have set up camp. All our equipment is there. Would you come with us? Would that be all right?’

She looked at Melt.

‘If you’ve met humans before, you’ll know what our guns can do. If I wanted to harm you, I could have shot you as you approached. I could shoot you as you leave. That wouldn’t help me do my job though, would it? Come and speak with us! Please?’

‘I think we should go with them,’ said Karel. ‘They might be able to tell us things we need to know.’

‘What about your wife?’ said Melt. ‘Don’t trust them, Karel.’

‘Why not, Melt? What do you know about these humans? Why won’t you tell me anything?’

Melt glared at him, eyes glowing.

‘They said that there were humans in Artemis,’ said Karel. ‘I think we need to find out as much as we possibly can.’

‘Very well,’ said Melt. ‘But watch out. Their words are lubricated in the finest oil. Don’t trust the animals!’

The night passed under the brilliant stars to the tolling of bells. The noise from the city was increasing, the steady stamping, the gunfire. More than once Wa-Ka-Mo-Do thought he should go to the aid of Ka-Lo-Re-Harballah, but each time Gillian had dissuaded him.

‘They are coming,’ she said, oblivious to Wa-Ka-Mo-Do’s concerns. ‘Our soldiers are more than a match for a few civilians.’ Didn’t she realize that, but for a lingering concern for the Emperor’s authority and for the fact that he wasn’t sure just what to do for the best, he would have given his robots the order to open fire upon her and her troops?

The gun at the top of the Street of Becoming was deactivated. The other human guns were mostly still now. Every so often one of them would twitch and send a brief stream of bullets into the night before lowering its head and resting once more. There was a sense of calmness and isolation up here at the top of Sangrel, a feeling of being temporarily removed from the trouble below. They all felt it, human and robot alike, staring into the surrounding darkness.

‘Zuse is low tonight,’ said La-Ver-Di-Arussah. ‘Hiding behind the hills.’

Wa-Ka-Mo-Do looked at her in surprise, not expecting this sudden show of feeling. Was her confidence ebbing as his was?

‘I heard that Zuse is mentioned in the Book of Robots,’ she said.

Wa-Ka-Mo-Do couldn’t be bothered to pretend any more.

‘It is, La-Ver-Di-Arussah.’ And he thought of Rachael. Rachael had told him that there was something significant about the metal moon. The humans seemed to know so much, he reflected, so much more than the robots did.

‘What do you think of your creators now?’ taunted La-Ver-Di-Arussah.

‘They’re not our creators,’ said Wa-Ka-Mo-Do bitterly. ‘The book says that we should look after each other. The humans don’t even look after themselves: look how they are fighting each other.’

As if to prove his point, the nearest gun turned and fired a quick burst out into the night. He felt adrift, engaged in a war that he didn’t understand, caught between opposing forces that had no interest in him, half following the remnants of orders issued by his former Emperor.

His former Emperor. Wa-Ka-Mo-Do felt a deep sense of shame at his treachery, but what else could he have done?

‘They’re coming!’

The words were spoken by robots and humans alike. He saw the remaining humans of Sangrel hurrying up the broken Street of Becoming.

The street was wider at the top, the houses there richer and more imposing. The humans moved quickly up the centre of the road, surrounded by green-panelled human soldiers, their feet slipping on the rounded cobbles as they headed for safety. The soldiers scanned the high windows and roofs, looking out for dark silhouettes against the stars. Every so often they raised a rifle to their shoulder and fired. Each time, a robot died. Still the bells tolled, but now, faintly behind them could be heard the chanting of electronic voices. Wa-Ka-Mo-Do peered into the darkness and saw the shapes of his troops bringing up the rear. Where was Ka-Lo-Re-Harballah?

The humans began to enter the square, walking three abreast, quickly but without haste, and Wa-Ka-Mo-Do felt a sneaking admiration at their grace under pressure. He scanned their faces for Rachael, but didn’t see her. If they had any sense they would have put the young and weak in the middle of the line.

A shout came from the city below.

‘The animals! They’re escaping!’

How did they know? Did they guess the humans’ plan? It didn’t matter. All those little groups of robots out there, creeping through the rubble, searching for courage and direction, suddenly found a focus. The sound of gunfire increased.

The steady flow of humans became a stampede.

‘It’s started!’ La-Ver-Di-Arussah drew her sword. ‘Cover the humans! Don’t allow any robot past!’

‘No killing!’ shouted Wa-Ka-Mo-Do.

La-Ver-Di-Arussah laughed.

‘How else will we maintain order?’

She moved forward, the remaining robot troops forming up around her. More humans came running forward, tumbling over each other, and Wa-Ka-Mo-Do found himself struggling against the tide. It would be so easy to take his sword and cut through this all too yielding flesh.

‘Where’s Ka-Lo-Re-Harballah?’ he called.

‘Down there,’ said La-Ver-Di-Arussah. ‘At the rear!’

‘Once the humans are past, bring all the troops up into the square!’

‘I will!’ She had resheathed her sword. Now she took out a pistol of human design and began to fire into the night.

‘Where did you get that?’ shouted Wa-Ka-Mo-Do.

‘Gillian gave it to me!’

She wore a look of delight as she aimed the pistol down the street, picking off the civilians who showed themselves. There were more and more of them, the revolutionary crowd was growing all the time.

‘I still can’t see Ka-Lo-Re-Harballah!’

‘He doesn’t matter! Look at all these robots! We’re not going to hold them!’

She was right. They were losing the battle.

Losing the battle? These were his own citizens he was fighting against!

And then he heard a noise behind him, and he turned to see the female gun at the top of the street raise its head.

Gillian had lied to him. The humans had set it working again!

He turned to run towards it, just as that odd rippling noise began. Just in time, he flattened himself to the ground, the air flickering above him as the gun fired down the road. He heard the shriek and clatter of metal being torn apart. Robots, the robots of his city were being killed, troops and rebels alike.

From where he lay he saw Gillian and the soldiers looking down the street with empty eyes, eyes that did not light up with warmth or intelligence. Quickly, he began to crawl up towards the gun, hoping that it wouldn’t fire upon him. It hadn’t turned on La-Ver-Di-Arussah and the rest; he guessed that it was ranged beyond them.

It was a gamble, but a good one. Besides, better to die with honour charging the humans’ weapon than to lie here while robots were being killed.

He sprang forward, sprinting up the street.

A human soldier pointed a pistol in his direction. Wa-Ka-Mo-Do glared at him, lighting up his face with the white glow of his eyes. The soldier hesitated, long enough for him to reach the gun, the shapely, curving machine that rippled death on the robots below. He could feel the power surging through it, that strange, singing current. He drew an awl and thrust it deep into the heart of the gun’s shaft, heard the bang, felt the electro-muscle in his right arm burn and die at the same time as the great gun did. Its head drooped, the rippling ceased. Wa-Ka-Mo-Do had killed it.

‘What have you done?’ shouted Gillian, running up to him. She had pulled her pistol from its holster and pointed it to his head as he stood there, arm hanging limply at his side. The gun wavered; the square was filling with humans all the time, behind them the noise of shooting was growing louder. The Street of Becoming echoed to the clatter of gunfire.

‘Wa-Ka-Mo-Do!’

Rachael emerged from the crowd, face pale and smudged with soot.

‘What happened to your arm?’

‘Rachael,’ said Wa-Ka-Mo-Do in a low voice. ‘Get back.’

Rachael noticed Gillian, who lowered her gun and turned back to her troops.

‘Get another gun across here, now!’ she called.

Wa-Ka-Mo-Do saw that the last of the humans had entered the square. Now only the imperial soldiers remained, covering their retreat. La-Ver-Di-Arussah was forming them into a line at the top of the street, pouring fire down at the attacking rebels.

‘What’s happening, Wa-Ka-Mo-Do?’ Rachael’s voice sounded frightened. Wa-Ka-Mo-Do pushed the soft human gently away, and went forward to La-Ver-Di-Arussah.

‘You should have left the gun alone,’ she said. ‘It would have kept them back. They’ll overwhelm us soon.’

She was right. There were so many robots out there now. Thin, poorly constructed things, the light in their eyes dim, their bodies made of tin and pig iron and whatever else there was to hand. They carried a few guns, a few knives. Mainly they held metal struts and bars, ripped from the broken buildings and quickly shaped into clubs and spears. These were robots that had lived in poverty for years under the Emperor’s rule, only to have even that taken from them when the humans had arrived. Little wonder that tonight they had finally risen up.

Wa-Ka-Mo-Do felt the current draining from his body. Everything had gone so wrong. La-Ver-Di-Arussah had been right. He was nothing but a peasant, he was not made for command.

He looked at the straggling remains of the Imperial Army, joining the ranks of La-Ver-Di-Arussah’s defence.

‘Where’s Ka-Lo-Re-Harballah?’

‘Hit by the humans’ gun.’

And at that the current flowed back through his body. Stronger and brighter than before, humming with anger.

‘The humans’ gun?’ said Wa-Ka-Mo-Do, softly. ‘The humans’ gun? And you see nothing wrong with this? Our soldiers cut down for the benefit of these Sebol?’

He spat out the words.

‘We follow the will of the Emperor,’ said La-Ver-Di-Arussah, calmly.

‘The Emperor is a fool! He has sold us to these animals!’

‘We are his to sell. All of us. And none more so than those pig-iron peasants down there.’

She waved to where the robots were moving in fits and starts up the Street of Becoming, falling in ones and twos before the volleys of the guns.

Something dark passed across the bright stars above, and a new sound could be heard: a descending hum.

‘The humans’ ship,’ said La-Ver-Di-Arussah. ‘Look, here it comes!’

Red lines leaped into being at the edge of the horizon, tracking a path through the night sky towards the descending craft. The female guns bobbed and turned, and high above more fire tracked out from the ship, intercepting the attack that had streamed from the distance.

‘They’re dropping the shuttles now,’ said Gillian. ‘Give us half an hour and we’ll be gone.’

And then what about us?

His thought was cut off. Gillian gulped, gulped again. She spat dark oil from her mouth. No, not oil, blood. Blood was pouring from her mouth and her chest, staining her uniform. A second bullet struck Wa-Ka-Mo-Do in his dead arm. He heard the ringing noise through the night. Robots were pouring into the square. How had they got up here so fast? They hadn’t breached La-Ver-Di-Arussah’s line.

Wa-Ka-Mo-Do reached for his shotgun with his dead arm, realized his mistake and pulled it awkwardly from its sheath with the other. Across the square, humans were running towards one of the female guns, seeking no doubt to turn it on the robots.

‘No!’ called Wa-Ka-Mo-Do.

La-Ver-Di-Arussah was firing at the attacking robots, shattering a fragile head, sending blue wire tangling out. The sound of the bells, the humming of the descending ship, the rippling of the guns…

‘Stop!’ cried Wa-Ka-Mo-Do. He raised his voice. ‘I am Wa-Ka-Mo-Do, of Ko, of the State of Ekrano in the High Spires! One of the Eleven! Commander of the Emperor’s Army of Sangrel! I command you to halt.’

It worked. For a moment. The peasants nearest to him paused and looked in his direction. Then one turned a gun towards him, but too slowly. Wa-Ka-Mo-Do fired his shotgun, shattering the front of its body.

He heard screams. Human screams. There was Rachael nearby, mouth wide open in a human expression of terror. Two robots had hold of her; they were pulling at her arms, trying to rip her apart. He leaped forward, kicked at the nearest with the blades at his feet, ripping the electromuscles in its leg. The second robot let go and ran. He shot it in the chest.

‘Th… thank you…’ said Rachael. She placed a hand on his arm. She looked as if she was going to hold him. At that moment she reminded him so much of La-Cor, his sister, he felt ashamed. Sangrel was burning, robots were dying, and he had paused to help a human. Would his sister understand that?

‘Wa-Ka-Mo-Do,’ said Rachael. ‘Listen to me, as soon as we’re gone, you’ve got to get away from here.’

‘Can’t. I’ve got the city to control!’

A knife flew out of the night. He held out the barrel of his shotgun and deflected it from Rachael. She didn’t seem to notice.

‘Wa-Ka-Mo-Do, listen to me! It doesn’t matter! It will take us some time to get into orbit, but once we’re clear, sometime tomorrow morning…’

Three explosions nearby. Shattered metal washed across the square. The first human shuttle descended from the sky. A wide-bodied craft, it landed near the terrace, light shining from its open doors.

‘Go!’ said Wa-Ka-Mo-Do.

‘Wa-Ka-Mo-Do, you must listen to me! They’re going to drop-’

But someone took hold of Rachael and dragged her away, off towards the shuttle. Wa-Ka-Mo-Do turned and rejoined the fight.

But the fighting was dying away. In the middle of the turning guns, beneath the explosions and flares that lit up the sky above, calm was spreading over the square. Humans retreated unmolested as robots were ceasing to fight, laying down their arms and kneeling down.

What was happening? And then Wa-Ka-Mo-Do saw what the robots had already noticed. He saw the three figures that had emerged from the Copper Master’s house and who were now walking towards Wa-Ka-Mo-Do. He felt his gyros rattling, felt the current wobbling through his body. The Vestal Virgins had returned.

The electrical hum of terror affected everyone in the square, and Wa-Ka-Mo-Do remembered the stories he had told Rachael of how the old rulers of Sangrel had woven fear into the citizens. It was still there now, it was there in every subject of the Emperor. Subservience to the Vestal Virgins was woven into the mind of every robot.

The three women passed one of the human guns, their beauty rendering that of the alien machine strange and ugly by comparison. They halted before Wa-Ka-Mo-Do. He was swaying, he had discharged too much current that day. His arm hung useless at his side. He had never felt more powerless.

‘Wa-Ka-Mo-Do,’ said the first. ‘You have failed the Emperor.’

She was as beautiful as he remembered her, but there, under the starry sky, with the fires of destruction leaping around the edge of the terrace, it was a terrible beauty.

‘The Emperor has failed us!’ shouted Wa-Ka-Mo-Do. His words rang hollow across the square.

‘You have failed Sangrel,’ said the second.

‘The Emperor failed Sangrel.’

‘You are relieved of your command,’ said the third.

‘By whose authority?’

‘The Emperor’s. There is a radio in the Mound of Eternity. Surely you must have realized this?’

He hadn’t. He felt a shimmering whine inside himself, as if his lifeforce was dying away.

One of the Vestal Virgins turned to La-Ver-Di-Arussah. ‘La-Ver-Di-Arussah, you are now in charge of this city.’

‘No!’

‘Be silent, Wa-Ka-Mo-Do,’ said another.

La-Ver-Di-Arussah stepped forward, smiling.

‘Put down this rebellion.’

He wanted to shout out, but he couldn’t. He had been ordered to silence, and it was woven into his mind to obey the Vestal Virgins.

One of them stepped forward, she touched Wa-Ka-Mo-Do on the head.

‘This way,’ she said.

He found himself following her from the square. He had no choice. He looked across, saw Rachael’s pale face looking across at him as she boarded the shuttle. She was shouting something to him, but he couldn’t hear. The rattle of gunfire had begun once more, directed by La-Ver-Di-Arussah.

Wa-Ka-Mo-Do was led into the Copper Master’s house, no longer the Commander of the Emperor’s Army of Sangrel, no longer a warrior of honour.

He had failed, completely.

As he was meant to do.

The animals had set up a little roof made of flexible plastic in the middle of the village. Under it there was a table set with some electronic equipment and some more sheets of plastic covered in symbols and pictures.

Brian went straight to one of the sheets.

‘Here,’ he said, showing it to Karel, who took a moment to realize he was looking at green countries painted over blue seas. It was an odd choice of colours.

‘Here’s Shull over here,’ said Brian. ‘This is the large city to the south of these mountains. Can you show me where Turing City was?’

Karel was too taken by the rest of the map.

‘What are all these other places?’ he asked, pointing to two large islands, almost touching, to the right of the map. The two of them together were bigger than Shull.

‘These? I believe you call them Yukawa. Those are the north and south islands. And over here is Gell.’ He pointed to another huge island to the left of Shull. There was a scattering of smaller islands around it.

‘I never heard of these places!’ said Karel. ‘Never, not in all my time in Turing City, never in all my time working in immigration. No one ever came from these places.’

‘Really?’ said Brian.

‘Never mind that,’ interrupted Melt. ‘Ask them where they come from. I know these animals. They ask so many questions, and they give nothing in return.’

‘How do you know so much about them, Melt?’

Melt leaned forwards. ‘Go on, Brian, tell us. Where are you from?’

The animal laughed, his white painted mouth stretched in a wide smile. The dark glass he wore over his eyes reflected the surrounding peaks.

‘We’re from a place called Earth, Melt. Another planet. Millions and millions of miles away.’

‘What are you doing here?’

‘Finding out about you. On Earth, not so long ago, people like me and Ruth and Jasprit used to travel to other countries to find out how the people lived, what their customs and beliefs were.’

‘Their beliefs?’ said Karel. ‘Why would you do that?’

‘And what about the humans down on the plain below?’ interrupted Melt. ‘What are they doing here?’

‘Trading.’

Ruth stepped forward. ‘The trouble is,’ she said, ‘once one culture begins to interact with another they both begin to alter each other. That’s why we are up here, in the mountains, where things are-’

‘Yes, yes,’ interrupted Melt once more. Karel was getting irritated by how rude he was being. ‘Tell me about Earth. Did countries trade with each other back on Earth?’

‘All the time,’ said Brian. ‘They still do now. Tell me, Melt, where have you seen humans before? How long ago was it?’

Melt glared at the man.

‘Could you show us on a map?’ asked Brian, not giving up.

‘It was the summertime, when I met you,’ said Melt. ‘Does that answer your question?’

Brian gazed at him. ‘Yes, I think it does.’

‘Here,’ said Karel, feeling embarrassed. ‘Here. This is where Turing City was.’

He placed a finger on the map, towards the southern coast of Shull.

‘Odd,’ said Brian. ‘Our mapping software didn’t pick up anything there.’

‘It wouldn’t,’ said Karel. ‘I told you, Artemis conquered my state. They leave nothing behind.’

‘And you’re going there now,’ said Jasprit. ‘Going to find your wife?’

‘Yes.’

‘And do you love your wife?’

‘Yes. Of course.’

‘Do all robots love their wives?’

‘Usually. Often, when a child is being made, it is woven into their minds to love someone.’

‘I know about that,’ said Jasprit, ruefully, and the other two humans laughed, the machines they wore translating the harsh, juddering sounds they made into the sweet hiss of robot laughter.

‘Tell me about him,’ said Melt, suddenly, pointing at Simrock.

The laughter ceased.

‘What about him?’ asked Ruth, all businesslike.

‘You spoke to him. How?’

‘Don’t you know, Melt?’ asked Brian.

‘I asked the question first. Answer me!’

‘I’m sorry, Melt. We don’t mean to frustrate you. That’s our training. Often telling what we think to be true corrupts or changes the people we are trying to learn about.’ Brian held his arms apart in a human gesture. ‘But you must know how we spoke to Simrock. Don’t you use radio to communicate?’

‘Yes, of course we do…’

Then it struck Karel and Melt what she meant.

Ruth leaned forward, genuinely interested. ‘Don’t you find it odd that so few robots on this planet have exploited radio as a means of communication? I mean, the pilgrims, the whales, the hive insects do. That’s about it. Why don’t you?’

‘Why should we?’ blustered Melt. ‘We build radios when we need them.’

‘You have so little curiosity. All of you. You just accept things as they are.’

She was right, thought Karel. We do. He looked at Brian and Jasprit, saw the way they were looking at each other.

‘You know about us,’ said Karel. ‘You know more about us than we do ourselves.’ Something occurred to him. ‘Have you been to the Top of the World?’

‘Why?’

‘No more questions!’ shouted Melt.

‘I’m sorry. Force of habit. No, we haven’t. Why do you ask, Karel?’

‘I’ve been to the top of Shull. There is a place there.’

‘Can you show me on the map?’ asked Brian.

‘I’m sorry. No. But there is a building. I was forbidden to enter, but I looked inside anyway. There is an arrangement of robots in there, all lined up, showing how we evolved.’

Jasprit began to dance at this.

‘Really? We’ve got to go, Ruth.’

‘We will! What else is there, Karel?’

‘A map of the stars on the wall. And the titles of three stories: The Story of Nicolas the Coward, The Story of the Four Blind Horses, and The Story of Eric and the Mountain.’

That had them.

‘Really, Ruth, we have to go!’ said Jasprit. ‘We need to see that place!’

‘We’re interested in stories,’ explained Ruth. ‘They tell you a lot about a culture. I’ve heard the story of Nicolas the Coward. Simrock told us that as you walked here.’

They looked at Simrock, standing placidly nearby. He seemed to have lost interest in the conversation.

‘I don’t know the other two stories though,’ said Ruth. ‘Could you tell me them, Karel?’

‘I’m sorry, no. I never heard them.’

Melt made a noise.

‘Do you know them, Melt?’ asked Karel.

‘I thought everyone knew the story of Eric and the Mountain,’ he replied.

‘Everyone? No.’ Karel gazed at Melt. ‘Melt, where are you from?’

‘Karel, do we have time for this?’

Karel was torn between Melt and the animals. To think he had walked all this way next to someone who knew one of the mysterious stories.

Melt spoke up.

‘Ruth, maybe we can do a deal,’ he said. ‘We need to get down to the plain below. If you help us, I will answer all your questions.’

The three humans looked at each other.

‘We could call up a craft,’ said Brian. ‘But I’m not sure it would take all three of them.’

‘I’m staying here,’ said Simrock.

‘Why?’ asked Melt.

‘This is where Nicolas the Coward will be, not down on the plains below.’

‘Two of us then,’ said Melt. ‘You must have flown up here in a craft. I can’t imagine animals walking this far. Get us closer to Artemis City and we’ll help you.’

‘We can’t take you too close,’ said Brian.

‘Why not?’

‘It’s another state’s… trading area,’ said Ruth. ‘We have agreements.’

‘I think I understand,’ said Melt. ‘Just take us down to the plains, then.’

‘Very well,’ said Brian, and he held out a hand. Melt took it and moved it up and down.

‘You have met humans before,’ said Ruth. ‘In that case, if it’s all the same to you, we will speak to Karel.’

Karel was too heavy for the humans’ flimsy chairs. He didn’t mind, he sat on the rocky ground amongst the curved iron buildings as these creatures from so far away asked him questions.

Such strange questions, at once so obvious but so difficult to put an answer to. Where did robots come from, how did they make children, what was the difference between a robot and an animal? Why were there two moons, why was there metal, how long do they live, what’s the difference between a male and female robot?

And then, the oddest of them all.

‘Take a look around the village, Karel. Tell us what you see.’

‘Why?’

‘We want to see this world through your eyes.’

Karel looked around. From here he could see nothing but sky, he was lost in the cupped hands of the mountain, watched only by the sun. No one knew of this place, but it still seemed odd that it had remained undetected for fifty years, if not the hundreds of years old that it looked.

‘What do you think? Go on. Look around.’

He got up and, followed by Ruth, he wandered around the village. The buildings were just a little smaller than he was: he could not stand up inside those low iron domes. The doors were all low, no more than two feet high, and he ducked to enter one or two, to look around the empty interiors with glowing eyes. In one he found a shallow depression in the centre of the room that might once have held a fire. Looking up, he saw a hole in the roof, flames of rust licking through the iron towards him.

He ducked back outside and turned his attention to the collar of stone on which the iron dome sat.

It was green with organic life, he noted with some disgust. Green fur, yellow splats of lichen, even frills of some pale substance he had never seen before.

He reached out and dragged his finger across it. It felt so insubstantial, almost like it wasn’t there. It was ironic. Up here, in this forgotten space at the top of the world, strong metal rusted, but weak organic life waxed wildly. Only in Turing City had the natural order reigned. Only in that state had the stones been scrubbed clean, the creeping tendrils of green life uprooted and burned, only there had metal walked pure and free. No more.

And then, as he stared at the obscene mush on his fingers, the world seemed to flip. For a moment, that mush was the true, vital life, and his metal body was cold and clean and sterile. Nothing but metal animated by thoughts.

Then the world flipped back again and he laughed. What did it mean to say ‘nothing but metal animated by thoughts’? He was exactly metal animated by thoughts.

The world flipped again, and he looked at those low, wide doorways, and something else became clear.

Ruth was there, standing by him.

‘What is it, Karel?’

‘I think I see. The robots that lived here weren’t shaped like me.’

He found the proof in the next building he looked inside.

Two bodies lay in there. Robot bodies of a sort. They were long, of many segments, two limbs, not quite arms, not quite legs, coming from each section. At one end there was an interface where Karel guessed another segment could be plugged. At the other there was a flat head containing two eyes of a similar design to his own.

The skull of one robot was broken open, and he peered inside at the blue wire in there, maybe not so much like in Karel’s own head, but it was twisted enough to suggest intelligence.

Karel ran his hands over one of the bodies. He moved it, felt the articulation in the joints, saw the way the blue wire of the mind ran to the very tip of each limb. Then he noticed what was missing. No electromuscle. These robots controlled their bodies by lifeforce alone. They would be weaker than he was, a lot weaker.

It was good metal though. Steel with enough chromium to encourage passivation: these bodies would take a long time to rust. He noticed the traces of chromium in the dome structure too.

He took hold of one of the bodies, and crawled backwards out of the building, dragging it along behind himself.

‘Have you seen robots like these before, Karel?’

‘No. What are they, Ruth?’

‘We were hoping you would tell us.’

He began to disassemble the body for parts, pausing for a moment.

‘What’s wrong?’ he asked Ruth, hearing the odd noise that she made. ‘It’s only metal.’

He turned his attention back to the creature. Some of the chromium steel had welded together, and he had to tear the gelled parts from each other. Even so, it was a nicely constructed machine, and Karel was impressed by the craftsrobotship of the makers.

And a thought suddenly occurred to him.

Why was he shaped like he was? Why did robots have two arms and two legs? Why did they walk upright?

The answer was obvious, of course. That was a sensible shape for a robot. It was a sensible shape for a human. But was the obvious answer the right one?

Night was falling.

‘We must take them down tonight,’ Karel overheard Brian saying. ‘They don’t sleep, remember? Who is going to stay awake amongst us?’

‘I’d do it. I want to know more about the stories! Melt knows more. You saw how he answered that question!’

‘I don’t care. I’ve summoned the craft already. There’ll be other robots, Ruth.’

They were looking at him, Karel knew. He pretended not to notice. He was sat on the floor before Jasprit, looking at the patterns she drew on a piece of plastic.

‘That looks like a child to me,’ he said.

‘But why?’ asked Jasprit. ‘What makes it look like a child?’

Ruth came up. She looked down at the pattern. ‘I thought that was a man.’

‘Apparently not,’ said Jasprit. ‘Not to a robot, anyway.’

‘Karel,’ said Ruth, ‘the craft is coming. We’ll need to head up the mountain a little way to the flat ground. Are you ready?’

‘I am.’

Melt walked up. ‘They say it will only take half an hour to get down,’ he said.

‘That will save us a lot of time.’

Karel looked around the three humans, at the strange village.

‘I feel as if I should stay here…’ he began.

‘That’s how it begins,’ said Melt firmly. ‘Promises and help, and before you know it you’re dancing to their tune.’

‘You know,’ said Karel, ‘you’ve remembered your past.’

‘Later,’ said Melt. ‘When we’re down.’

They said goodbye to Simrock.

‘Good luck finding Nicolas the Coward,’ said Karel.

‘Thank you,’ said Simrock.

‘Goodbye Karel, Goodbye Melt,’ said Jasprit.

They climbed from the village, accompanied by Brian and Ruth. Jasprit and Simrock waved goodbye.

‘Not far up here,’ said Brian.

They climbed to a little wind-whipped plateau. Brilliant white peaks surrounded them, framed by the deepening blue sky. Night was coming. Below them the slopes were greyer where the summer snowmelt had occurred.

‘It’s not too windy is it, Brian?’ asked Ruth.

‘They said it would be fine.’

As he spoke there was a low buzzing. Karel saw a flying craft approaching, a huge propeller turning on the top.

‘A helicopter,’ said Ruth.

The craft came closer; it hovered above them and then slowly settled on the plateau.

‘Goodbye,’ said Ruth, holding out her hand. ‘I hope you find your wife.’

Karel took her hand. It was a delicate operation; not too hard so he crushed it, not so soft it slipped from his; he shook it up and down, the way he had seen Melt do.

‘Thank you,’ said Karel. ‘I hope you find out all you need to.’

He shook hands with Brian and then moved towards the craft. The big propeller on the top was blowing down on them, pushing them to the ground. Something within in the craft set up a singing resonance within his body. It was uncomfortable, but bearable.

Karel and Melt climbed on board. They were met by a human wearing something like a robot’s skull over his head, a sheet of glass across the front. He showed them where to sit on the little metal seats. He seemed particularly concerned by the weight of Melt, moving him around the cabin until he was happy with his position.

Eventually they were settled. The note of the engine increased, and Karel gazed out of the window as they rose up into the air.

Susan

Barrack 245 was one of twenty identical corrugated-steel buildings arranged in a four by five grid near the marshalling yards.

The windowless, rectangular constructions crowded together, keeping the narrow concrete paths running between them forever in gloomy shadow. Susan walked with Spoole, now also wearing the body of an infantryrobot, down one of the paths.

‘There is fungus growing down here,’ said Spoole. ‘Here, right in the middle of Artemis City.’

‘Fungus?’ Susan looked at the soft white globes. ‘They’re obscene!’

‘I saw them in Born,’ said Spoole. ‘They used to cultivate them.’

‘Why?’

‘I have no idea.’ He looked up at the sheer wall of the building. ‘This is the place. It’s empty.’

Susan could feel it too. The building could hold one thousand, four hundred and fifty robots, packed in, arms and legs and bodies all pushed together. So many bodies combined would set up a faint hum. Spoole tapped at the wall. They heard the hollow vibration of the space beyond.

‘They’re gone,’ he said.

‘Not surprising,’ said Susan. It had taken them days to reach the barracks. Days of dodging patrols and doubling back on themselves. The order had gone out that Spoole was now wanted for treason against the state. That was a difficult concept for the robots of Artemis, their minds woven from birth to think of nothing but Nyro’s way. That conscripts should turn against the state, that they should only pretend to be Artemisians as a way of preserving their life, that was understood. But for Spoole, a robot whose mind was woven in the making rooms of Artemis, to turn traitor, that was almost unthinkable.

‘What do we do now?’

Spoole had the answer already.

‘Head for the Marshalling Office. Nettie will have been loaded onto a train. We can find out which one.’

They left the barrack area and followed the gloomy concrete paths back out into the sunshine at the edge of the marshalling yard.

Railway lines, their upper surfaces polished silver by the passage of wheels, swept across the ground in every direction.

‘It’s over a mile across,’ said Spoole, proudly. ‘Two miles deep, though some of the lines run back for five miles, almost into the heart of the city.’

Susan looked at the endless rows of the wagons parked on the lines before her. A diesel engine rumbled past, pulling a line of green tankers. She could hear the petrol sloshing around inside them. Only half full. Had the humans taken the rest?

‘Where’s the Marshalling Office?’

‘Down there.’

Spoole pointed south, to the focus of the yard, the place where all of the lines converged through a series of points and crossovers, the place where the hundreds of tracks joined together in ones and twos to leave just sixteen, running from Artemis City and into the continent of Shull. A gantry stretched across those sixteen tracks, a haphazard array of galvanized steel buildings erected upon it.

‘Every train that leaves the city this way passes beneath the Marshalling Office,’ said Spoole. ‘Every train, every item of freight, is recorded there. If Nettie has been taken, they’ll know it. Come on.’

They set off, jumping across the tracks, dodging between the trains that slowly rumbled past.

They found themselves keeping pace with a rake of open wagons, infantryrobots standing idly on board, watching the world go by.

‘Where are you heading?’ called Spoole.

‘Stark!’ one of them called back. ‘They say Kavan is out there!’ He took a closer look, and saw through the borrowed infantry-robot body. ‘Hey, you’re Spoole, aren’t you!’

‘I am!’

‘Spoole!’ Susan tugged at his arm. ‘What are you doing?’

The infantryrobots all turned in his direction, pressing forward to the edge of the wagon.

‘Spoole, what’s going on?’ they called. ‘They say you’re a traitor! Are you?’

‘What do you think?’ asked Spoole.

‘I don’t know. Why are you fighting Kavan?’

‘I’m not sure I’m fighting Kavan. Are you?’

The train was speeding up. One infantryrobot began running back along the train, trying to keep level with Spoole. Jumping from wagon to wagon, pushing other robots out of the way. Spoole and Susan jogged forward to keep up with him.

‘Would Kavan trade with the animals?’ called the robot.

‘You know the answer to that,’ called Spoole.

‘But…’ The robot tripped on another.

‘Hey!’

The train was accelerating now. Spoole watched as the infantry-robot receded.

‘Spoole!’ it called.

‘It’s going too fast,’ said Susan, slowing to a halt. Spoole did the same. ‘You took a risk there.’

‘I don’t know,’ said Spoole. ‘Look.’ They both watched as an infantryrobot jumped from the train. Two more followed its example.

‘Come on!’

They ran forwards, the end of the train passing them as they did so. More robots were jumping to the tracks ahead of them. Some of them lost arms and legs as they did so. Others helped put them back together.

Susan and Spoole arrived at the group.

‘Spoole, I’m Copland. Do you remember me? Years ago, in Bethe?’

‘Spoole, we can’t believe you’re a traitor.’

‘I’m not. Treachery would be following the animals.’

Copland looked at the other robots.

‘Listen, Spoole. There are others in the city who think the same as you. Hundreds of them. Thousands. All they need is a leader.’

Susan gazed balefully at Spoole.

‘You’re going to leave me, aren’t you?’ she said. ‘You promised to help me!’

‘I didn’t, Susan. You are thinking like a Turing Citizen. An Artemisian follows Nyro. There are no other promises.’

Susan glared at him, hatred singing within her.

‘However,’ said Spoole, ‘I bear you no ill will, and I will help you as best I can. Go to the Marshalling Office. Ask to see the freight records, under my authority.’

‘Your authority? It means nothing to me. Nor to anyone else!’

‘Apparently this is no longer the case,’ said Spoole. Behind him, the other infantryrobots were finishing the repairs to each other and they were lining up in formation. ‘Anger will get you nowhere, Susan.’

‘Anger? After what your state did to mine? I can’t believe I trusted you.’

‘That trust is part of the reason why your city failed, Susan. Listen to me though, I’m trying to help you. Once you have access to the freight records, look for Nettie, find out where she was taken. The office staff will help you, they should see nothing unusual in your request. Such things happen all the time. Once you have found where Nettie was taken, note the service number of the train. After that, go to the timetable office and find when that service next runs. Get yourself on that train.’

Susan felt as if her gyros would break out of her at any moment.

‘I hate you. I hate you and your rusting, badly twisted state.’

‘That’s the difference between us,’ replied Spoole. ‘I bear you nothing but gratitude, Susan. Which of us has the better mindset?’

At that he turned and began to march north towards the centre of Artemis City, the infantryrobots following him. Susan couldn’t bear to watch him go. She couldn’t bear to follow his advice.

She stood in the middle of the tracks for eighty minutes. Immobile, undecided as to which way to go. Trains rumbled by her this way and that.

In the end she did the only sensible thing. She headed towards the Marshalling Office.

Karel

The human craft flew down from the mountains.

Karel looked out of the window in awe. Though he had travelled up and down this continent he had never seen it from this perspective before. On his previous journeys he had been aware of a constantly expanding border, of Artemis pushing back its boundaries. Up here, though, sitting in the oddly soft human seat, he saw nothing but one land. Snow giving way to brightly coloured rocky cliffs, cliffs sloping down to fields of boulders, boulders shrinking to pebbles before giving way to the gravel plain beyond. More though, he was aware of the change in the colours of the rock, the way the bright profusion of ores faded to the grey of the Artemisian plain.

The helicopter swooped towards it, and Karel wanted to tell someone about what he was feeling, but he held back. He didn’t want to speak to Melt. At least, not yet. More than ever he was convinced that the other robot was hiding something. The heavy lead man just sat there, gazing at nothing.

Karel looked at the human who sat in the back of the craft with the pair of them. It was looking at Karel with interest, examining his body, looking at the fingers on his hand.

‘Hello,’ he said, holding out his hand as he had seen the other humans do. ‘My name is Karel.’

The animal smiled and took it, moved it up and down, then pointed apologetically at his head. He wasn’t wearing one of the devices that would let him understand their words. Odd, thought Karel, that there would be different ways of speaking. He thought about what Ruth had said, how robots weren’t very curious, and he wondered, should he be more curious? The Story of Eric and the Mountain… That was meant to be important. Melt said he knew that story. Maybe when they landed he would get Melt to tell it to him.

The craft dropped lower. Karel saw railway lines in the distance; he saw a train shooting along at incredible speed. A human device. He leaned forward, twisting his head around the window, trying to follow its course. What was making it move so fast?

A voice crackled into life.

‘This is the pilot. I’m afraid this is about as far south as I can go. Head a little to the east and you’ll come across a railway line. Follow that to Artemis City.’

‘Thank you,’ said Karel.

The hum of the engine increased and the craft touched down in a cloud of dust. The human slid the door open and slapped Karel on the shoulder, sending the metal there ringing. Karel dropped to the ground, then turned and helped Melt do the same in his heavy body. They raised their hands in goodbye as the engine noise deepened, and the craft lifted and flew back north.

Karel and Melt watched it go.

‘Okay,’ said Karel to Melt. ‘You’ve not been honest with me. Tell me now, I want to know the full truth!’

‘I will tell you,’ said Melt.

‘I want to know everything.’

‘Yes. But on the way. We need to speak to the robots of Artemis. We need to tell them what’s going to happen to them!’

‘Speak to Artemis? They won’t listen to us.’

‘They better had. Or they’ll all be killed. All of them, and all of us. I’ve seen this before. I know what the humans are going to do. ..’

Wa-Ka-Mo-Do followed the three women into the remains of the Copper Master’s house. The few robots remaining there averted their eyes as he was led through the corridors to the Copper Room.

He wanted to turn and run, he wanted to head back into the square and wrest control back from La-Ver-Di-Arussah.

He couldn’t. His shame cut too deep, and his mind was woven to listen to his sense of honour. He understood this. He had failed everyone, he deserved his fate. He had no choice but to follow the Vestal Virgins, and they knew it.

The previously concealed door at the rear of the Copper Room had been left open to reveal a rough corridor hewn directly from the rock. A set of steps spiralled down into the darkness, and Wa-Ka-Mo-Do raised the light in his own eyes to see.

Stepping from the Copper Room into the stone corridor, Wa-Ka-Mo-Do felt as if he was leaving his life behind. His last thoughts, oddly enough, were of Rachael. The pale-faced human, his copper girl. She had tried to warn him. Her words came back to him and he halted.

‘Listen!’ he said, urgently. ‘Something’s going to happen in the morning! We need to clear the city.’

‘That’s no longer your concern, Wa-Ka-Mo-Do,’ said one of the women, sweetly.

‘But what about Ell? What happened in Ell?’

‘Resume walking, Wa-Ka-Mo-Do,’ said another, ‘and do so in silence.’

They didn’t have that power over him, the ability to command him to cease speaking, but Wa-Ka-Mo-Do was silent nonetheless. There was nothing to say.

Deeper and deeper they descended beneath the city. Ancient tunnels branched off from the corridor, most of them half collapsed with disuse, and Wa-Ka-Mo-Do remembered the copper mines upon which the prosperity of Sangrel was built.

They walked for some time through empty rock long stripped of metal, the perfect figures of the three women barely visible before him. They passed out under the lake, the waters dripping down from above.

Finally, they began to ascend.

‘Almost there,’ said one of the women, turning and smiling back at him, and Wa-Ka-Mo-Do felt his current wax and wane despite himself.

They reached a spiralling set of steps, cut in the stone, and ascended it. Wa-Ka-Mo-Do found himself in a small room, decorated in jade. There was a chair set in the centre, a small forge burning to the side.

‘Sit down, Wa-Ka-Mo-Do,’ said one of the women.

His body did as it was ordered.

One appeared at his side.

‘Your arm is damaged,’ she said, and he felt an electric thrill as she touched him at the shoulder. She did something, and he felt the loss of weight as the arm was removed. He forced himself to remain calm, to ignore the fear clamouring inside him. He was still a warrior.

‘This was well made,’ said the woman who examined his arm. ‘Yet I’m sure I can improve upon it.’

To his confusion, she began to carefully pull out the twisted, melted wire of the electromuscle. He flinched as the other two women knelt by him and began to unship his panelling. They set to work on his body, twisting and tweaking and shaping him. Fixing him and repairing him. He felt a sense of pleasure and well-being building up, all the while being pushed back by the terror that had lodged itself deep inside.

‘Is this nice?’ said one of the women.

‘Do we not tune and improve you?’

Their voices were so sweet. He almost began to relax.

‘A healthy body will respond so much better to punishment.’

The current surged through him, sending a crackling charge into the fingers of one of the women who knelt at his feet.

‘Naughty,’ she said, smiling patiently. ‘Later. Relax for the moment. Enjoy the servicing! This will be the last time you will feel such pleasure.’

‘Ever.’

The three of them smiled at him so kindly, and Wa-Ka-Mo-Do felt a surge of horrified dread sing throughout his body.

He sat in the Jade Room, three beautiful women working on his body, on his electromuscles, on his metal skeleton, until it was morning.

Then, fully repaired, he was led through ornamented rooms and out into the sunlit dawn.

The air brushed his exposed electromuscle.

‘No panelling,’ said one of the women. ‘You won’t need it.’

The Temple of Eternity was mostly open to the elements. White marble pillars separated the area into different rooms, some of them containing pitchers and vases, some of them containing robot bodies, frozen in positions of agony. Wa-Ka-Mo-Do turned away from them.

He was taken, electromuscle naked to the world, to a small terrace overlooking Lake Ochoa. Across the dark waters he saw the city of Sangrel, smoke still rising into the morning air. Apart from that, everything seemed so peaceful.

Then he saw what awaited him.

A small forge was set in the middle of the terrace, and by it lay a new body, warming in the rays of the rising sun. A thick body made of cast iron and lead.

‘Are you frightened, Wa-Ka-Mo-Do?’

‘Yes,’ he answered, truthfully.

The three women laughed.

‘Not sufficiently, I suspect,’ said one. ‘Otherwise your fear would have overridden your compulsion to obey. You would be running already.’

‘I deserve my punishment,’ said Wa-Ka-Mo-Do.

‘You do. You realize, Wa-Ka-Mo-Do, that the Emperor hoped you would disobey his orders? He thought that one of the Eleven would fight back against the humans?’

‘No…’

‘Yes, Wa-Ka-Mo-Do. Don’t you see that that way he could disown your actions, even though he was secretly proud of you?’

Wa-Ka-Mo-Do could see it.

‘Or you could have obeyed his orders fully, and then the Emperor would have lost no face to the animals.’

‘But instead you adopted this weak compromise. This half and half action that was suitable to no one. You neither fully rebelled nor fully obeyed. You truly have failed, Wa-Ka-Mo-Do.’

For the first time, Wa-Ka-Mo-Do saw it was true. He had failed. By the standards of the Empire, but worse, by his own standards.

One of the Vestal Virgins raised her voice.

‘Let it be known that the Emperor personally has judged this to be a suitable punishment for your failure.’

‘And the Emperor has a fine judgement in these matters.’

‘And your failure was spectacular.’

‘Now, stand by the body.’

He did so. Those three beautiful women moved around him, their delicate fingers picking away at Wa-Ka-Mo-Do’s frame, unhooking the electromuscles they had so recently repaired and made whole, pulling out the rods of his skeleton, laying him back into the new leaden body, fitting the long electromuscles into place in his new housing. He watched in fascinated horror as first his legs, and then his hips, and then his left arm was hooked into place in that terrifying shell.

‘Move your right arm this way a little.’

He obeyed, and then he felt that too being unhooked.

‘It’s a beautiful morning,’ said one.

‘They say that, even when facing death, a robot should still take the time to appreciate beauty. Are you doing that, Wa-Ka-Mo-Do?’

‘Am I going to die?’ he asked.

‘We all die,’ they laughed. ‘But hopefully not for a long time yet. The Emperor wishes you to endure your punishment for many years.’

They went to work on his neck and head, carefully pulling away the rods and panelling of the skull, peeling away metal until they held his mind and his coil, his eyes, voicebox and ears in their hands. They turned his eyes this way and that, showing him what they had done, and then laid him back so he was facing the blue sky, and the cold, heavy feel of this new body made its way up through his coil.

Then they tilted his head a little, so he could watch as they took all the metal remaining from his former body, all the metal and panelling that he had carefully formed and bent and knitted over his lifetime and they dropped it onto the little forge to melt before him. Scarlet paint turned black and flaked away.

Wa-Ka-Mo-Do felt some connection with his past sever, and bitterness overwhelmed him. It was about all he had left.

‘The Emperor is a traitor,’ he said. ‘He has sold the Empire to the humans.’

‘The Emperor can never be a traitor,’ said one of the women, in the most delightful voice, ‘for the Emperor’s will is the Empire.’

The words were spoken softly in his ear, and he wondered at how robots could be so fair but so cruel.

And yet so far he had felt no pain. They worked the metal of his body apart so gently and expertly that he had felt the wire stir within him. But no! That mechanism was gone, it was melting on the hot coal of the forge.

‘The Emperor has sold his subjects,’ said Wa-Ka-Mo-Do. ‘He has sold his land and his livestock. And so the Empire is no more.’

‘Not so long as the Emperor’s subjects do as the Emperor directs,’ said one of the women, kneeling down beside him. ‘And now, it is time for the punishment.’

Wa-Ka-Mo-Do watched as she took a pot of solder from the top of the forge and laid it on the ground next to him. She dipped a spatula in the pot and then applied it to something just beyond his vision. His right arm erupted with fire. The electromuscle, the connections that ran through his coil to his mind, all of them were singing to near overload with the heat and the current between the iron of the body and the metal of his electromuscle. The pain was incredible.

‘Do you have anything to say, Wa-Ka-Mo-Do?’ asked one.

He forced himself to speak. He was one of the Eleven, he would salvage what little dignity he could.

‘The Emperor is a traitor…’ he repeated.

‘You say that now, Wa-Ka-Mo-Do, yet the punishment has only just begun. Come, let us fix the other arm and then we shall see if you still feel the same way.’

The surge of current and heat erupted in his left arm. It collided with the pain from the right arm at his coil.

‘And now how do you feel, Wa-Ka-Mo-Do?’

‘Traitor…’ he managed.

‘Your voicebox is crackling with static after just two arms. We still have the rest of your body to work upon.’

The women worked on as the sun came up, and the pain rose and rose, passing each supposed climax, until his body was fixed in place. Nearly all of his body. For there was one final act.

‘Finally, Wa-Ka-Mo-Do, the coil. You do understand what we are about to do?’

A beautiful face appeared before Wa-Ka-Mo-Do, blocking the sun’s rays for just a moment. The metal of her face was bent so smoothly. For the first time, Wa-Ka-Mo-Do noticed the fine holes that punctured the mask, tracing the shape of mouth and eyes. So fine. And behind them, the faintest glow of blue twisted metal. He could look directly at her mind. Such a twisted thing. How could a length of metal rejoice in such cruelty? What did cruelty mean? How could metal be cruel?

A ceramic pot was held before his eyes.

‘This is a mixture of platinum and gold and iron. Some copper and silver. Do you recognize the mix? This is the same alloy as your mind is twisted from. We will mix this with your coil, splay it out and flatten it against the metal of this body. The two metals will become one. To try and prise your mind free would be to break your coil. You will be trapped in there forever. Do you understand?’

Wa-Ka-Mo-Do struggled to speak. His words were fighting against a static of pain.

‘Traitor…’

‘I think you understand.’

The face and ceramic pot withdrew. Suddenly, his coil, his mind, his body were on fire. The pain was unbelievable: nothing he had ever before endured had been like this.

And it would never cease, for the rest of his life.

Then came the final act. The three women had set crucibles of lead to melt. They came forward and stood over him, tilted the heavy bowls, and he watched as the metal, silver-grey and bubbling, spilled over the edge and poured into his body. And this time he couldn’t hold it back any longer. An electronic squeal sounded from his voicebox. The Vestal Virgins looked at each other in satisfaction.

They left him. He gazed unseeing at the sun as it rose towards noon. The lead in his body was cooling, but the pain remained trapped there with him.

He saw movement. The Vestal Virgins returned.

‘Wa-Ka-Mo-Do,’ said the women in unison. ‘Stand up.’

‘I can’t,’ he said, his voicebox buzzing.

They laughed.

‘What, Wa-Ka-Mo-Do the great warrior of Ekrano, defeated by this body?’ taunted one.

‘I have seen women with much less lifeforce stand up in much heavier suits. I have put them there myself,’ said another.

‘But we know that women can withstand more pain than men.’ said the third.

Wa-Ka-Mo-Do moved his arms. So heavy, each movement was agony.

‘Come on Wa-Ka-Mo-Do, great warrior of Ko. Try harder!’

He flexed his arms again. So heavy!

‘Is that all he can do? The robots of the Silent City fare much better. But they have strength in their minds…’

The pain threatened to short out his mind, still he forced himself onwards. Flexed his legs. Pushed himself onto his side, with great, heavy scraping movements. He held his balance for a moment, then he rolled forward heavily onto his front. The movement jarred, sent more pain surging through him. He felt the cooling lead shifting around him, thundering agony through his body, lances of fire and surging current. Slowly, inch by agonizing inch, he forced himself to his feet.

‘I can… I can… do it…’

He saw the look in their eyes, just for a moment. They concealed it immediately.

‘You… didn’t, didn’t… think… I could!’ A surge of triumph, so weak against the pain.

‘Not at all. We’re just surprised it took you so long.’

‘Liars!’

‘And now, Wa-Ka-Mo-Do, it is time for you to…’

Her voice trailed away. She was gazing up into the sky. All three of them were. Gazing at something behind him, something out towards Sangrel. Wa-Ka-Mo-Do remembered Rachael’s words…

Tomorrow morning. When we are far enough away…

Painfully, agonizingly, Wa-Ka-Mo-Do turned to follow the gaze of the Vestal Virgins. A small star was falling, it crackled with lightning.

‘What it is it?’ said one of the women.

‘It’s a… human device,’ replied Wa-Ka-Mo-Do. ‘The Emperor has

… betrayed you, too.’

The electric star fell, and as it did so a thin line of lightning flickered down to the city. It felt its way this way and that around the broken-roofed ruins of the Emperor’s Palace, there at the top of the city. Then another strand of lightning flickered forth, and another. And then the air was filled with dancing lines, an electric rain storm of brilliant threads. They felt their way from the city, out across the lake, heading to the mound.

Wa-Ka-Mo-Do and the women watched as the threads of light climbed up the Mound of Eternity, seeking them out, touching the terrace, looking for something.

‘Look how it seeks my hand,’ said one of the Vestal Virgins, and she waved her arm this way and that, the strand of lightning following her movement.

‘And me,’ said another. ‘Look it touches my foot.’

She tilted back her head and let off such a lovely sound that it took Wa-Ka-Mo-Do a moment to realize that she was screaming.

‘What is it?’ called her sisters, and the threads touched them and they too screamed.

More lightning was dancing in now; it surrounded them like bars. The Vestal Virgins tried to run, tried to dodge. To no avail. The threads touched their hands, their feet. The air was filled with their cries of pain.

The electric threads found Wa-Ka-Mo-Do and he felt a muted ache, almost lost against the background of agony that already filled his shell.

‘But it’s not so bad…’ he said.

The Vestal Virgins didn’t seem to notice. One came to Wa-Ka-Mo-Do, her hands held out in supplication. He took them in his own and watched as the electric threads found their way into her mind.

He looked into her eyes as they glowed stronger and stronger, there was a buzzing thump and her mind exploded. The air was filled with white light. Two more thumps as her sisters died in the same way.

Now the threads felt their way to Wa-Ka-Mo-Do’s head and…

Spoole

This is how Kavan had done it, thought Spoole. He hadn’t so much commanded events as ridden them. The revelation had been a long time coming, but now he understood.

Spoole wasn’t like Kavan: he had been woven to lead. He saw Artemis as something to be shaped and guided, something to be directed towards specific goals. Kavan hadn’t been made that way. It had long been rumoured that he was made in Segre, that his mother had followed Nyro’s pattern when she had made his mind. Finally, Spoole understood what that meant. Unlike Spoole, who sought to lead, Kavan saw Nyro’s way, and he followed that path. It was a subtle distinction, but an important one. And now Spoole had learned to apply it.

As Spoole walked along the railway lines, following Nyro’s way, heading towards the Centre City, the word spread. Robots who had wondered at the human’s arrival here in Artemis. Robots who distrusted the motives of the Generals, robots who believed that all metal should be directed in Nyro’s way. Robots looking for a leader to express their feelings.

Spoole and his growing army left the area of the marshalling yards. They began to walk the long mile by the cable walks, down the corridor of steel cable left piled by the sides of the road.

There was a rhythm developing to their tread. Faint for the moment, but growing.

Stamp, stamp, stamp.

Yellow-painted workers emerged from the buildings to join him.

Together, they marched on.

Ka seemed fixed to the horizon. No matter how far Wa-Ka-Mo-Do walked, it remained dark and ugly in the distance. The sea wind blew thick ribbons of smoke inland. At night, their undersides were lit red with the burning fires.

All the while he felt the bitterness of defeat, the burning shame that was so great he almost welcomed the perpetual agony the Vestal Virgins had woven into his body.

Almost welcomed. The pain was too great. Every footstep sent a bolt of pain up through his legs to jar his body, a variation in the static agony that filled his shell, a counterpoint to the anguish that filled his mind.

He had failed completely. Failed the Emperor, failed himself, failed the robots of Sangrel.

Nearly every one of them was dead.

He had struggled through the streets and lanes of the city, painfully dragging his new body along, heaving his leaden prison past robots whose minds had been blown, but whose bodies remained untouched. Robots lay on the ground or sat on ledges. They collapsed forward, supporting each other in pyramids, they leaned back against walls. There was no movement, but there was a sense of motion about the scene, of activity interrupted. Wa-Ka-Mo-Do almost expected them to come to life at any moment, to resume their angry insurrection, to pick up the knives and clubs that had fallen from their lifeless hands and resume their attack on the upper city.

It wouldn’t happen. The life had gone from their eyes. Sangrel, poor, twisted, abused Sangrel, was at last at peace, lit by the yellow summer sun.

The only sound came from above, the plaintive bleating of animals in the copper market. What strange device had the humans used, to kill robots and leave organic life untouched?

Just how powerful were they? Powerful enough to have written the Book of Robots? Undoubtedly.

For a moment, just a moment, he had an understanding of the Emperor’s position. What else could the Emperor have done in the face of such force? What else could he have done but negotiated and bought a few months’ grace whilst he saved face and frantically sought some way of fighting this powerful foe?

But then Wa-Ka-Mo-Do moved that heavy body and the searing agony of current shorted across his back, and he was lost in pain once more.

It took him all morning to drag himself up to the Copper Market, pushing aside fallen bodies, crunching on the glass and broken tiles that littered the streets. He found the organic animals, and, not knowing what else to do, he unlocked their cages. He watched as the great beasts walked out amongst the fallen bodies, blowing hard from their noses, nudging at the metal remains of their keepers.

Wa-Ka-Mo-Do released all the creatures he could find, a heavy fatigue building within him; then he stopped, exhausted. It took so long to build up the lifeforce to move this leaden body, and then it was expended in so little time. He looked around the broken market place as he rested; saw the stalls that had collapsed when their owners had fallen onto them. Their wares were strewn on the floor, slicked in oil and grease. Animals clattered over scattered metal plates, they knocked over displays, skittering away at the sound of ringing bells dying on the ground behind them.

He heard a noise and slowly turned around. Something metal ran from the market place.

‘Wait,’ he called, his voice heavy and badly tuned, but it was too late. Whoever it was had gone.

So he wasn’t the only survivor.

He saw the remains of a soldier, over by the wall. The mob must have cornered it, torn it apart. The blue wire of its mind was pulled out and draped across the cobbled stones. Beside it, a child, a young boy, barely four years old judging by the size of the body he had built himself. His head was crushed, the wire exposed and deformed.

What had happened here, before the human bomb had fallen? Had there been a riot, the child crushed, the mob extracting vengeance upon the soldier?

Whatever it was, the two deaths weren’t the responsibility of the humans. They weren’t the responsibility of the Emperor. He, Wa-Ka-Mo-Do, had been in charge of the city. It was he who had failed utterly not only in his duty, but also in his mutiny. Despite his actions, his troops had still died, the people of Sangrel had still died.

Why couldn’t the humans’ weapon have killed him too? What was it that had protected him? Had the excess of metal in this body shielded his mind?

He contemplated walking to the very top of the city and flinging himself from the highest place. If that didn’t shatter his mind, then he would walk back to the top and try again, and again and again until his body was broken.

That was when he remembered. There was still one to whom he was beholden, one who still sought his help. He remembered the message from Jai-Lyn, hidden from him all that time in the radio room.

Wa-Ka-Mo-Do still had one last chance to redeem himself. He had failed everyone else. Maybe it was not too late to save Jai-Lyn.

He had set out immediately for Ka, passing from Sangrel and into the lands beyond, walking for mile after agonizing mile in that heavy body that sunk to the ankles in anything less than the firmest ground. He heard a low, static-filled hum and he realized it was his own voice; the agony he felt was leaking out through his speaker. With an heroic effort he stilled it and went on walking, pulling his feet, covered in clods of mud, from the soft earth, passing through the fields the animals had planted.

After a while he had the sense that he was being watched, and he turned this way and that, too slow in that leaden body, seeking other signs of life. How many other robots had survived the attack?

Eventually he found himself on a white stone path, kicking up dust as he made his way to the coast. He saw smoke coming from a nearby forge, saw robots emerging from the doorway. They beckoned to him, but he kept on walking: outcast, pariah, unfit for the company of others. His shame and sense of failure glowed within him all the stronger for meeting company.

He saw the fire on the horizon after the third day. Ka was burning, he knew it. Still he walked on.

Other robots walked the road.

‘What news from Sangrel?’ called one, gazing in horror at Wa-Ka-Mo-Do’s heavy body.

Wa-Ka-Mo-Do said nothing, he just kept on walking, still too ashamed to speak.

‘Hey! What did they do to you? Let me help!’

‘I don’t deserve it.’

Slowly, he limped on.

That day he turned aside from the white stone road to avoid the other robots that walked it, and he made his way across the land, heading directly for the burning city and its black column of smoke.

The green hills gave way to flatter, marshy ground. To his right he saw the road, graceful white bridges arcing over the ditches and swamps. He ignored them, moving deeper and deeper into the saltwater-soaked land that bordered Ka. The sun burned red as it set, mirroring the flames of the city; it reflected in patches from the land, it stained the sky the colour of dull iron.

He passed into the swamp, and he sought out the rills of rock that lined the marshy bed, following the stone paths, the green water up to his waist, sometimes up to his neck. Occasionally he walked underwater, his vision a green blur, and the slippery shapes of organic life whipped around him all the time. He would emerge onto a soft bank and look ahead to see the city seemingly no closer, the despair within him no less, the pain as intense as ever.

Still he marched on.

Susan stood in the Marshalling Office. Through the window she could see the silver lines that spread out across the world, converging upon her. A line of wagons was passing beneath her right now and she found her eyes drawn to it, the regular flick, flick as the end of one wagon passed by and another rolled on.

The Marshalling Officer didn’t seem to notice.

‘Well,’ he said, looking down once more at the piece of foil, ‘this is the service you want, but it’s not going to do you any good. It doesn’t run any more.’

‘Why not?’ said Susan, frustrated. Another train rumbled by underneath, this time heading into the yards.

‘Oooh, well, it was a special service, see? Only ran for about a month, straight into the humans’ compound. They’re not accepting direct services at the moment.’

‘Why not?’

The Marshalling Officer laughed. He was painted a pale green, not quite the same as the computers of the Centre City.

‘Why not? Susan, you’re not on official business are you?’

‘Yes I am, I told you-’

‘Susan, it’s okay! I don’t care, see? All I want to do is to ensure that Artemis works. The way I do that is by making sure the railways run smoothly.’

‘Listen…’

‘Gresley.’

‘Listen, Gresley, the robot in question used to work in Making Room 14. She has information-’

‘Susan, I really don’t care. Half the information on this continent flows through here. I know what’s really going on. I know that Kavan is out there on the plain somewhere, building an army. I know that he is getting ready to attack this city again, and I know that he is coming closer. He might even be here by now. Troops ride in and out on these trains all the time. If I were Kavan I would have simply hopped on board one of them.’

‘Yes but-’

‘No, Susan, listen to me. I know that the robots in this city are growing more and more unhappy about the way Sandale and the rest have made an alliance with what are no more than a bunch of animals. I know that unrest is growing all the time. They say that we are receiving metal from the humans in return for land, but I’ve examined the lading bills and I know that we’re giving away more than we’re receiving.’

‘And you think this is wrong?’ said Susan, eagerly.

‘Susan, you misunderstand! I don’t care!’

The pale-green robot sat down on a seat by the metal desk that overlooked the yard and spread the foil out before him.

‘I keep trying to explain, I don’t run this city. I don’t make decisions about which lands we should conquer, or about where we build our forges, see? My mind wasn’t twisted to do that. What I do is make sure that the goods on the railways are picked up, and that they are deposited at their destination. If anything passes beneath this gantry, then it is my business to know about it. Do you understand that?’

‘Yes, I understand.’

‘Good. Then understand this, Susan. I don’t care who you are, I don’t care if you work for Kavan or Sandale or Spoole. I don’t even care if you’re in this for yourself. In a few weeks’ time such things will probably all be irrelevant anyway!’

‘Yes, so-’

‘So, ask me anything you like, and I will be delighted to answer!’

At that Gresley sat back in his seat and smiled.

‘This state has rust in the mind,’ said Susan.

‘It may well do,’ said Gresley, ‘but as long as the railways run properly, I am a happy robot.’

Susan took the piece of foil from the desk.

‘My friend was taken into the human compound on this service,’ she said. ‘I want to follow her in there.’

‘There we are!’ said Gresley. ‘Why didn’t you say that at the start?’

He leaped to his feet and walked to the other side of the room, where he examined a piece of foil pinned to the wall.

‘Now,’ he said, examining it carefully. ‘As I said, there are no direct services to the human compound planned. However, there are a number of troop trains being prepared for a direct attack on the compound.’

‘They’re going to attack the humans?’ said Susan, in astonishment.

‘I didn’t say that,’ said Gresley, ‘but you can’t just call up a train from thin air. These things have to be prepared. Someone is obviously planning ahead.’

‘Who?’

‘I don’t know. It could be Spoole, it could be the Generals. It could even be Kavan. Like I said, he may be in the city already.’

He pulled a sheet of foil from a book and scribbled something on it with a stylus.

‘Here you are,’ he said. ‘Line 4 point 16 point 3. The lines are numbered from the right. That’s line four down there, the one with the ore hoppers passing by at the moment.’

Susan looked down at the yellow stone-filled hoppers that rumbled by beneath them.

‘Just follow it up and count the branches. You should be able to join the train, dressed like that. I’m sure another infantryrobot would always be welcome.’

‘What do you mean dressed like that? I am an infantryrobot.’

‘Of course you are,’ said Gresley, and he turned back to his desk. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me…’

At that he picked up a pile of foil sheets and began to read his way through them.

Susan watched him for a moment, and then turned and headed out to find her train.

Ka was a city caught between worlds, a city built half on sea and half on land, a city caught between the harsh realities of whaling and the culture and civilization of the Empire.

It was a shifting, animate city. Whales were dragged from the sea, their bodies taken apart and separated into piles of metal. That metal was taken to plate the bodies of robots, robots who would then strip the metal from themselves and use it to construct new buildings, buildings that would then be dismantled and rebuilt elsewhere as more robots flowed into the city, or taken to line the new roads that were built into the sea. Metal would be formed into cranes and used to construct the little ships that carried metal up and down the coast, then the ships themselves would be dismantled and the metal used to construct new buildings.

Ka had moved up and down the coast over time; it waxed and waned like the tide. It was anchored only by the Whale Road, running as it did from the long-unused jade and stone buildings of the Emperor’s Sea Palace, all the way back through the provinces and cities of Yukawa to the Silent City itself.

Not that many of the Emperor’s robots travelled to this harsh town, grey and utilitarian as it was, lashed by the sea rain and choked with the smoke of forges.

This place was left to the strong and uncultured robots that worked there. Mostly male minds, full of lifeforce that powered big, heavy bodies, suitable for pulling whales down to the sea bed. Minds that thought nothing about ripping open the panelling of the huge creatures, and reaching through to disable the electro-muscle beyond.

Robots who had fought back.

Wa-Ka-Mo-Do saw the signs almost immediately he entered the city.

These robots had fought against the humans.

With guns and harpoons, with swords and spears and anything else that came to hand. Rocks and stones and metal bars lay discarded all around. The ground was still soaked with the red blood the humans carried within them. He saw the bloated remains of their bodies, long stripped of any useful materials, the yellow-white bones poking through the bare flesh.

The robots of Ka had swatted the flying craft with cranes. Wa-Ka-Mo-Do wandered through the docks, the grey sea splashing beside him, and he saw one of the human craft lying broken on the ground. Close up, it seemed so fragile: metal skin as thin as gold leaf, the transparent plastic cockpit bubble bulging and torn by the metal girder that had pierced its length. Two humans lay dead behind it, the fluid that had once filled their bodies dried and rusted around them. Wa-Ka-Mo-Do held out a hand near the red patch. There was iron there, just a trace. So these creatures had a little in common with robots. He inspected the face of the dead human. Had it felt pain or fear as it had died? He couldn’t tell.

But the dead humans were only part of the story.

There were dead robots, too. Dead robots lying everywhere in the streets. The humans had dropped one of their electric bombs here, too, though it hadn’t been anywhere so near as effective as in Sangrel. Many more robots still lived. Going about their work, clearing the streets, sorting the body parts into piles for re-use.

When they saw Wa-Ka-Mo-Do pass by they obviously recognized the handiwork of the Vestal Virgins, but this didn’t seem to bother them so much. If anything, his slow fight against the agony within his leaden shell seemed to grant Wa-Ka-Mo-Do a certain respect.

A man came running up to him.

‘You have one of these?’ he asked, handing Wa-Ka-Mo-Do a flexible metal mesh. ‘No? I thought not! Put it around your head and shoulders if the humans return. If they drop the electric bomb again, I mean.’

‘Thank you.’

The man hesitated. He gazed at the dark metal of Wa-Ka-Mo-Do’s body.

‘That is, if you can reach up to your head. Will your hands move that far?’

‘I can manage.’

The man’s eyes glowed.

‘Spread the word, brother. I say, let the animals return. We’ll be ready for them next time.’

With that the robot turned and dashed off.

Wa-Ka-Mo-Do dragged the heavy shell around the city, looking for Jai-Lyn. It was a pointless task, he knew, slowed further by his constant need to rest and recharge. She wouldn’t have stood a chance in the fighting, not wearing that thin, delicate body. Even if she was spared death from some human gun, then the electric bomb would have surely caught her. Only the heavy-duty bodies had survived, that and those robots who had later emerged from the sea, fresh from the hunt. Those robots found a city much changed since they had set off in search of whale metal.

He came to a set of making rooms. An old building, made of stone, chased in copper and lead. There was a forge inside, cold in the middle of the floor. The rest of the room was so neat and tidy. Bundles of wire and piles of plate, tins and tins of paint of all colours, neatly arranged on shelves around the walls. Doors led from the main area to the little rooms where the robots of higher rank would go. A dead woman lay in each, hands clutched to her head, the metal of the skull deformed and crushed by her own dying strength. None of them were Jai-Lyn.

Wa-Ka-Mo-Do looked at the last woman, full of silent shame. Somewhere in this city, Jai-Lyn would no doubt be sat, her hands clutched to her head in just that posture.

He emerged from the making rooms back into the red daylight. A robot was sitting by one of the stone tables in the middle of the square, waving at Wa-Ka-Mo-Do.

‘Hello, stranger,’ he called.

Wa-Ka-Mo-Do moved towards the robot. He was sat on an iron seat, the stone table before him crawling with life, both metal and organic.

‘Pull up a chair.’

‘It will break beneath the weight of this body.’

‘You know, I think it will. Perhaps you can kneel instead?’

Wa-Ka-Mo-Do did so, and felt the pain in his feet move to his knees. There was no relief to be found in any position.

The table was marked with a seven by seven grid of squares. Metal beetles, worms and lice wandered at random across its surface, all of them contained by the stone lip that ran around the table’s perimeter. Half of the creatures had a blob of red paint on their back.

‘Have you played chess before?’ asked the stranger.

‘Not like this. Not with animals.’

‘Really? This is the true game.’ The stranger reached out and quickly placed the creatures on their starting positions. Slow creatures, worms and placid beetles on the back row, skittering lice in the position of pawns.

‘They’re moving around already,’ said Wa-Ka-Mo-Do. ‘They won’t hold their position.’

‘That is why you must make your moves quickly, or your strategies will be of no use. You can be red, you begin.’

Wa-Ka-Mo-Do fumbled for one of his lice pawns. His hand was too clumsy.

‘It’s no good. I can’t take hold of it.’

‘You give up so easily?’

The man’s words stung Wa-Ka-Mo-Do. He tried again. With a feeling of tremendous satisfaction he managed to take hold of one of his lice pawns and move it two spaces forward. As he did so it began to rain. Dark spots appeared on the stone table.

‘Interesting opening,’ observed the other robot, ‘but, alas, it is undone already. Your pawn has wandered away…’

The stranger picked up a pawn of his own and moved it onto a square currently occupied by one of Wa-Ka-Mo-Do’s.

‘… so I take your piece.’

‘What is the point of this game?’ said Wa-Ka-Mo-Do, irritated. ‘I can barely move in this body.’

‘Then you will have to be cleverer than me, won’t you?’

With difficulty, Wa-Ka-Mo-Do seized his own pawn, but the piece he was aiming to take had walked out of its range. Frustrated, Wa-Ka-Mo-Do set the piece down on an empty square.

‘This is like life, no?’ said the stranger. ‘Like robots. Our parents twist our mind, set us on their path, but after that they can do nothing more than watch how their children interact with the other players in the game.’

‘There is no logic to the motion of these creatures,’ replied Wa-Ka-Mo-Do, in frustration.

‘Of course there is,’ said the Stranger. ‘They act as such creatures will. It’s just that the logic is not apparent to us.’

‘It would be easier if we just used regular pieces,’ said Wa-Ka-Mo-Do, watching as the robot captured another of his pieces, and dropped it, legs moving, in a stone cup at his side of the table. ‘Or if we could predict which way the pieces would move.’

With a major effort, Wa-Ka-Mo-Do took hold of a beetle. He waited a moment as one of the stranger’s creatures hesitated on the edge of a square, and then brought it heavily down.

‘Check!’ he said.

‘No longer,’ said the robot, and sure enough, his emperor walked from its square.

‘This is pointless!’ said Wa-Ka-Mo-Do.

‘Not at all! In life there are many moments when things seem final, then everything shifts and the game resumes. Just like now. The pieces are shifting. This is your moment, Wa-Ka-Mo-Do.’

Wa-Ka-Mo-Do gazed sharply at the stranger.

‘How do you know my name?’

‘I was told it by a robot on the sea shore. He is waiting there for you now.’

‘Waiting for me? How does he know about me?’

‘Through listening. Some minds speak to each other, Wa-Ka-Mo-Do. You know that the whales talk to each other?’

Wa-Ka-Mo-Do looked at the stranger, looked at his thin, delicate body.

‘You don’t look like a whaler.’

‘I’m not. I was brought here by the robot on the sea shore. He thought there might be a place for me here in Ka with the humans temporarily defeated.’

‘Doing what?’

‘Studying them. Finding out more about them. Deciding how best to fight them.’

‘Should we fight them?’ asked Wa-Ka-Mo-Do, deep in shame.

‘Why not? Your Emperor no longer rules this continent. It is not his real wishes you follow by serving the humans. You know, despite everything, you did well in Sangrel, Wa-Ka-Mo-Do. Maybe the best anyone could have done.’

The praise did nothing to lift Wa-Ka-Mo-Do’s mood. The weight of his body was not the heaviest part of his prison.

‘I could have done more. I could have followed the Emperor, or followed my own beliefs. Instead I did neither.’ He looked around. ‘Maybe I can succeed here. Join the fight with the other robots…’

‘There is nothing for you here, Wa-Ka-Mo-Do. You know that.’

Wa-Ka-Mo-Do felt the last vestige of hope slip away.

‘Then my life is over.’

‘You know that isn’t true. Anyway, isn’t despair forbidden by the Book of Robots?’

‘You know of the book?’ asked Wa-Ka-Mo-Do, but with no eagerness.

‘The knowledge wasn’t woven into my mind at birth, but yes, I know of it.’

‘What does the book mean now? You’ve seen the humans.’

‘Who said that they wrote the book? There is no reason why they should have done. Even if they did, does that give them the right to treat us in this way?’

‘Do you know what it is like to have your core belief thrust in your face and then twisted out of shape before your eyes?’ asked Wa-Ka-Mo-Do, his voice full of pain.

‘No,’ replied the stranger, and he picked up a beetle and dropped it on a square, taking another of Wa-Ka-Mo-Do’s pieces.

Wa-Ka-Mo-Do felt suddenly empty, drained of all emotion.

‘What do you want with me?’

‘Me? Nothing. But there is a robot waiting for you by the sea shore. I think you should go to him.’

‘I’m looking for a robot. She’s called Jai-Lyn.’

‘She’s dead. You know it, Wa-Ka-Mo-Do. There’s nothing for you here in Yukawa.’

‘There’s my sister, my family.’

‘Would you shame them by returning to them in that body?’

Wa-Ka-Mo-Do said nothing. He moved another pawn across the board.

The stranger lifted a piece of his own: the forge. He waited a moment in the pattering rain, then placed it on the grey board.

‘Checkmate. Come on, Wa-Ka-Mo-Do, it’s time to go.’

He stood up. Wa-Ka-Mo-Do got to his feet and followed the robot through the streets, down through a forest of crane legs, human craft tangled in the cables and lines above him. He followed the stranger down to the sea.

A robot waited by the water, his body like none that Wa-Ka-Mo-Do had seen before. His arms were way too long, his face and body inverted drops of water.

‘His name is Morphobia Alligator,’ said the stranger, ‘and he is a pilgrim.’

‘Where is he taking me?’

‘North, to the top of another continent. When summer approaches in the north, winter approaches in the south. Where there is happiness in spring, there is sorrow in autumn.’

Wa-Ka-Mo-Do gazed at the stranger.

‘Winter is ending, the humans have just arrived there. From one perspective, you will have a chance to live the last six months again.’

Wa-Ka-Mo-Do moved forward. Something was rising up from the water beyond. Something huge. It was opening its mouth.

‘Wa-Ka-Mo-Do,’ said Morphobia Alligator. He gestured towards the whale’s mouth. ‘Shall we go inside?’

Spoole

Artemis City was locked in a dynamic equilibrium of busy preparation for the next war. Like a storm cloud, the potential was continually rising, and all the robots were waiting to see where it would discharge itself.

The robots were forming into clans: infantryrobots, Storm Troopers and Scouts, computers and engineers, all forming their own groups, all waiting to see where to move next. On the edge of the city, the human compound sat in silence, its guns constantly scanning the surrounding area.

Rumour was rife. It jumped from robot to robot. The humans were leaving, they were going to attack. Sandale and the rest were arming themselves with human weapons; Spoole had taken the north side of the city; Kavan was about to attack the city, attack the humans; Kavan was already here, inside the city…

And at the centre of this maelstrom of uncertainty, Spoole marched into the largest of the forges, surrounded by a group of infantryrobots and Storm Troopers that were not quite escorting him, not quite following him. Kavan wasn’t the only person with presence, he noted with satisfaction.

He saw the Generals in the middle of the floor, just as he had been told to expect, and he felt a surge of relief. So that information at least was true.

‘Sandale!’ he called. ‘Why do you and the other Generals hide in here?’

They had been expecting him. All those Generals in their new bodies, all of them sporting the metals the humans had bought. Their bright, flashing panel work was in marked contrast to the dull greys and blacks of the soldiers who had followed him here.

He noticed the way they had arranged themselves: the younger Generals had moved to the back of the crowd. It was the older ones like Sandale who had the courage to challenge him.

What have we done? thought Spoole. What have I done? To think, if the animals had never arrived we may have carried on in this way, tearing Artemis apart through our constant jockeying for power. Robots like Kavan marching across the surface of this planet, conquering all, robots like these Generals, making copies of themselves, making robots to lead, robots that have never done anything else…

Sandale had stepped forward. ‘What are you doing?’ he demanded. ‘Why do you bring these troops into this place?’

‘As witnesses, Sandale.’ And he raised his voice so it could be heard within the forge.

‘General Sandale. Generals. I accuse you all of treachery! You are traitors to Nyro!’ Silence fell in the forge. All were listening. ‘Robots!’ he shouted. ‘We have made a grave mistake in Artemis City. We see it standing here before us. Where we should have built robots to fight and to build to the glory of Nyro, we chose instead to weave minds to lead us. That was a mistake! Because to them, leadership has become all! They have never walked a battlefield, they have never constructed a bridge or a forge or an engine. Worse than that, they don’t see any reason why they should do so! Instead, they believe that an ability to lead is all that is required. And so they do anything they can to continue that leadership, even if it means betraying us and Nyro to the animals! Better that, in their minds, than have Kavan return here to oust them!’

The forge was filled with silent attention. The crackle of the fires burning, the gentle pulse of the magnetic motors, the distant hammering, all seemed to fade into the background in the ringing of this greater truth. So many robots looking on, their rifles and knives and awls so far untouched. There was unresolved tension, waiting to be dissipated one way or the other. Of all the Generals, only Sandale seemed untouched by the building current. His low voice carried across the room.

‘You accuse us of treachery? It is you who do not follow the will of Artemis. Artemis’s leaders did not request your presence in this forge.’

Spoole walked forward, his simple, elegant body an eloquent contrast to the over-engineered machine that Sandale wore.

‘You no longer have any authority, Sandale. Not since you gave over part of Artemis to those who do not follow Nyro.’

Sandale smiled.

‘Spoole, did not Nyro herself say that land is not important? Only Artemis. The animals rendered a service to Artemis; they took the land as their payment.’

‘What service, Sandale?’

‘They rid us of Kavan, Spoole. Have you forgotten that was also your wish?’

‘Not in that manner, Sandale, never in that manner!’

But Sandale’s words had achieved their intended effect. Spoole sensed the change in the mood, he felt the scales tilt against him. Still, he pressed on.

‘The animals have taken their payment and more, Sandale! They are spreading across our land!’

A buzz of current ran across the room, jumping from robot to robot. Sandale raised his arms for attention.

‘You exaggerate, Spoole,’ he said, once silence had returned. ‘The animals remain within their compound.’

‘They remain within their compound? Except for their flying craft! Except for the railway lines they convert to their purpose and then use to take metal and fuel from us! Day by day the number of trains that ride the rails to their base increases, trains laden with refined oil and good plate steel, all carried from their bases in Stark and Raman and Wien!’

The point struck home, as Spoole knew it would. Taking metal away was like taking children away. All those unmade children that were the future of Artemis. Still, Spoole knew he should not underestimate the Generals. They were of a different manufacture. The newer minds may not be prepared in the ways of the battlefield, but they were twisted to rhetoric and the art of debate. Already, one young General clad in the lightest of bodies was stepping forward to speak.

‘Indeed, Spoole is right!’ she declared. ‘The humans do take oil and steel, but what you seem incapable of realizing is that they return more than they take! And what they return is of a higher quality, or better than that, of materials previously unknown to us. Look at the metal that is scattered around this forge, given to us by the humans! Look at the aluminium they have brought!’

The entire room gazed at the body of the General, regarded its lustre, felt with their senses its strange but natural essence.

‘Aluminium!’ said one robot, near to Spoole, and the wistfulness in its voice was almost painful to hear.

‘Yes!’ called Sandale, delighted at how the point had struck home. ‘Aluminium! Look, all of you, look at the metal that lies to the far wall of this assembly room. Look, too, at the copper and the platinum, the gold and the electrum that the animals have exchanged with us!’

A buzz ran around the room. Sandale stepped forward, and, old soldier that he was, Spoole saw the titanium beneath the aluminium that he wore.

‘You call us, traitors, Spoole?’ called Sandale. ‘Why? Artemis has traded in the past, it will continue to do so in the future!’ He moved to face the crowd. ‘Listen, all you who have come here today, following this relic of the past. The world may be transforming, but we remain true to Nyro! If Spoole and his philosophy are no longer in keeping with the new reality, as they so clearly are not, then what do we do but build new leaders? Leaders such as those you see before you. Leaders who understand the need to twist new minds suitable for the continuation of Artemis!’

At that some of the robots around the room stamped their feet in agreement. Stamp, stamp!

Sandale turned to face Spoole.

‘See Spoole? We are not traitors.’

Spoole was not built to feel uncertainty under most conditions, and so it was for the first time that he wondered if he had made a mistake. What if Sandale was right? What if he really were a relic of the past?

He pushed the thought aside. He wasn’t made to be indecisive under any circumstances.

‘What about the mothers?’ he said.

‘What of them?’ asked Sandale.

‘Yes, what of them,’ called a nearby infantryrobot. Spoole spoke to him directly.

‘The mothers of Artemis, Olivier, didn’t you know? Sandale has given some of them to the animals, he has ordered them to weave minds that will serve the animals, to weave minds according to the animals’ designs.’

The assembled robots didn’t like that. The thought of minds being woven in any way but that of Nyro’s was abhorrent to them. Spoole saw the glow of their eyes, he felt the mood swing back towards him. But once again the young General dressed in aluminium stepped forward.

‘“Minds according to animals’ designs”?’ she said. ‘And what of it? The metal will still be metal. It will run for forty years or so in the humans’ service, and then it will die, and it will still be metal. Eventually it will return to Nyro’s cause. And just think what we may have gained in trade from the humans in the meantime.’

That calmed the robots a little. They were still unhappy, but they were willing to listen. They wanted to listen. It was built into them to trust the Generals. Spoole felt the balance swinging this way and that. He saw the Generals ranged against him, one robot against the many. He would lose this argument in the long run, he knew it.

He realized his mistake then, coming here and arguing like this. He had walked onto a battlefield advantageous to his enemies. He should have fought them directly instead, using guns and knives. Too late to realize this now.

Then someone spoke from the back.

‘This metal is from Turing City State!’

The robots turned in the direction of the shout.

‘Turing City State is no more!’ called Sandale, but Spoole noted the hum of current that had arisen within the General.

‘Hold,’ called Spoole. ‘Speak, robot. What metal is from Turing City State? What do you mean?’

‘This electrum! This metal that is said to be a gift from the humans! I would recognize the mix anywhere! It’s from the coastal mines. I used to assay there, before the invasion.’

‘From the coastal mines?’ called Spoole, and he saw the reaction of the Generals.

‘You knew that, didn’t you?’ he said, realization dawning.

‘No…’ said the young General, her current humming audibly.

‘You did!’ he said, anger rising within him. ‘You knew that already! Yet you continued to deal with them! They are trading us our own metal! They take metal from us and give us back our own!’

‘Why would they do that?’ replied Sandale, desperately.

‘The mothers of Artemis! They want the mothers! And you’ve given them to the animals!’

Rifles were gripped more tightly now, awls and knives were drawn.

‘The aluminium!’ said the young General. ‘What about the aluminium? That doesn’t exist upon Shull.’

‘Not on Shull,’ said Spoole. ‘But maybe elsewhere on Penrose! We never looked that far abroad, did we? Too content on keeping ourselves in power!’

‘No!’

The current in the room was building to a peak, ready to discharge. The Generals felt it. They saw how guns and knives were turned in their directions. Their reign was coming to an end.

Spoole’s followers turned towards him, awaiting the order.

‘No!’ he shouted. ‘Not now. Save your anger for the true target! It lies outside our doors, it lies just outside this city! Robots of Artemis, take back your land! Take back your metal! Take back your mothers!’

The young General stepped forward once more.

‘No!’ she exclaimed. ‘NO!’

And the robots were silent for a moment.

‘Listen! Just listen to me.’ The robots were still, they looked at her. They wanted to hear what she had to say. Anything was better than the near certain death that would likely result from attacking the humans.

‘Listen,’ she repeated, and her voice was calm now. ‘You’re angry. I understand that. But you must trust your leaders. Yes, we were lied to. Yes, the humans misled us. But which one of you could have done better? Who here has any experience of negotiating with animals? None of us! So now we find ourselves in a situation not of our choosing. Well, what would you do now? Follow Spoole as he leads you into the human guns? What good would it do Artemis if we were all to die this day?’

Spoole laughed.

‘What good would it do to follow the humans?’

‘We would live a little longer, and so would Artemis. I say we think about where we are. I say we follow the humans for the moment. Then, when we understand them better, that would be the time to attack!’

‘No! No longer. We attack now!

But once more the robots in the forge were undecided. The young General pressed home her advantage.

‘And there it is, Spoole. That is the sticking point. Is there really any robot here that we would trust to lead us in an attack on the humans? Is there any robot here capable of defeating them? I don’t think so.’

And a voice called out from the rear of the crowd.

‘There is one.’

They all turned to look in the direction of the robot that had spoken. It was a Scout, her silver body scratched and battered.

‘There is one,’ she repeated, and she turned towards the door. They all followed her gaze and saw the robot who stood there. An electrical thrill surged through the crowd.

Kavan had returned.

‘Fight until your coil is broken,’ said Kavan. ‘If we lose, our metal will be taken from this planet, never to be reclaimed. Shull will gradually be drained of all metal, and the diminishing number of robots who remain will be left to fight over ever decreasing resources.’

That was it. No more speeches.

The attack began at night, when the humans slept like children.

The guns that surrounded their compound suddenly lifted their heads and turned to look at the night. The railway lines began to sing, bright white flares rose into the sky, electricity began to hum, and the ground shook as thousands of feet stamped down in unison.

The human guns began to ripple, tearing apart the leading edge of the train that sped down the tracks towards them, bullet holes travelling its length, perforating the metal, peeling it away into the night. A fire glowed white at the heart of the locomotive, it caught and spread backwards, and the train flared into a metal comet streaking onward.

Explosion!

The first atomic bomb detonating at a speed of nearly two hundred miles an hour, the explosion bouncing forward, wiping out the human guns closest to Artemis City…

The rest of the guns were already refocusing on the second and third trains, racing up behind, the massed firepower much reduced by the first explosion, but the tracks were now ripped apart and there was no road through. The second train exploded further away from the compound, the third train further still.

Scouts running across the plain, their bodies shattering as the human guns saw them, more Scouts coming up behind, watching the paths of those ahead, seeking out the lines where the firepower was weaker or non-existent. Engineers poured from the city, laying new lines; they were followed by the wagons that rolled down the newly laid tracks, bringing more rails and sleepers. Infantryrobots walked the corridors picked out by the Scouts, Storm Troopers aiming heavy weapons into the night, firing bazookas in the direction of the guns, the shells picked off and detonated by the compound’s defences when they were still half a mile distant.

‘Concentrate your fire on one gun!’

‘Fire on one gun only!’

‘Aim for the nearest! Your shells will have less distance to travel!’

‘Less chance for their guns to get their aim.’

The sergeants called the orders, the troops obeyed, and then, there in the distance, there was a bright yellow flare as the first of the human guns was destroyed by Storm Trooper fire.

‘Good! And again! And again!’

More Scouts were running forward. The human defences had less of a field of fire now. The massing troops began to move forward. Scouts exploded in silver fragments, cutting into their sisters running up behind them. Some of them dragged themselves from the front, their legs cut away, heading back to find fresh bodies in order to resume the attack.

Now the human guns began to fire upon the infantryrobots. Their cheap grey bodies were shattered by just one bullet, and random patterns of disintegrating fragments jumped back and forth amongst the ranks as the human guns turned frantically back and forth, covering an ever-expanding front. And then another gun exploded, and another, picked off systematically by the Storm Trooper weapons.

‘It’s working!’ shouted Spoole, watching with the rest from a point just inside the marshalling yards. ‘It’s working!’

‘It’s only the first phase,’ observed Kavan. ‘The humans will have awoken by now. They’ll begin their counterattack soon. That’s when we’ll see the weapons they’ve been holding back.’

‘We should launch Ada’s devices now,’ suggested Sandale.

‘No,’ said Kavan. ‘Not yet.’

‘Then let’s not launch them at all,’ said Sandale. ‘It would be easier to let the humans go, if it comes to that.’

‘You’re not leading this attack,’ replied Kavan.

The infantryrobots continued to push forward, gaining ground on the enemy guns. The new railway lines grew, bringing the engineers within range of the enemy. They exploded in blue fragments, their peers working on around them. Behind them in the marshalling yard, the troop trains revved their engines.

The human compound was coming alive. Lights flicked on, dark shadows moved between them. Helicopters were rising into the air; they turned towards the attacking robots and yellow lines speared the night, connecting with a group of Storm Troopers that had just succeeded in destroying another of the guns. The helicopter fire shattered their bodies in an incandescent explosion. Grey infantry boiled forward and the human craft tilted their noses down and flew towards them, their drone filling the night, their firepower filling in the gaps in the field of fire where the human guns had been destroyed.

‘Sensible,’ said Kavan. ‘Just what I would have done.’

With the additional support of the helicopters, the guns were able to halt the advance. Now two of the craft peeled off and began to fly towards the city itself.

‘What now?’ asked Spoole.

As if in answer, the night lit up in brilliant white once more. More atomic weapons, these detonated beneath the helicopters as they crossed over into Artemisian lines. The two closest craft were destroyed immediately. In the distance, the others fought to remain in the sky.

‘Just as you said, Ada,’ said Kavan.

‘That will keep the others back for a while,’ observed Ada with satisfaction. ‘They won’t know where we’ll do that again!’

The area between Artemis City and the human compound was filling with craters, invisibly glowing with radiation, but still troops and engineers poured forward, running over the bodies of the fallen, turning their fire on the human guns. Everywhere there was movement, light, explosions, dark shapes running in lines this way and that.

And then, to the left, another explosion.

‘Ours or theirs?’ wondered Spoole.

‘Ours,’ said Ada. ‘There are more railway lines being laid over there, hidden by the darkness. They must have got another train close enough to the compound.’

‘They’re being attacked on two sides now!’ called Calor in delight, and she swiped the air with her claws.

‘What’s that?’ called Spoole.

Three lights flared in the human compound. Then three more, then three more. Something bright streaked towards the city.

‘Missiles!’

Three explosions to their right. So loud and bright. It filled the head with static, their vision blurred with white noise.

‘Atomics!’ shouted Ada, and her voice bent as three more explosions came from the left.

‘Launch the first devices,’ instructed Kavan.

‘They’ll take forty seconds to get heeeerrrrr!’

The third set of three explosions was the closest yet. Kavan saw three more lights flash in front of him. They instantly dissolved in a brighter explosion.

‘The Storm Troopers,’ whooped Calor. ‘They hit the launcher!’

The order of the battlefield was breaking down as the Artemisian soldiers charged forward indiscriminately, dropping into shell holes, cut down by guns, shattered by nearby explosions, picked off by the bullets of the helicopters that hung in the distance, afraid of more weapons, but all the time gaining ground, all the time advancing on the human compound. The area before them erupted.

‘Mines!’ said Spoole. ‘How did they do that without us knowing? Do they burrow up from underground?’

‘Ineffective,’ said Kavan, dismissively. ‘A mine can only blow up once. The metal of the soldier that it disables can be used again and again.’

‘What’s that buzzing?’ asked Sandale, and Ada spun to look behind them, her face filled with delight.

‘Here they come!’ she exclaimed. ‘We had to launch them from trains in the end. The engines don’t work unless the device is already up to speed, so we set them on trucks and got the train moving to ninety miles an hour. There is enough of a flow of air into the inlet then to keep the reaction going…’

Kavan wasn’t listening. Ada had to explain everything she saw. All he was interested in was the application. He saw the first of the streamlined devices as it flew overhead, so low Kavan that could make out the eyes set in its underside.

‘… pulse bombs!’ Ada continued. ‘We wove the minds to aim for anything hanging in the air. Look! It’s seen the helicopters!’ Ada’s eyes flashed blue with delight.

First one, then two, then a whole pack of the devices streaked past, heading towards the human craft, rolling through the air to dodge their fire. The first one hit a helicopter and exploded in yellow flames. Up ahead, the robots stamped the ground, three times. Stamp, stamp, stamp.

‘And more,’ called Ada, looking up. ‘And more! Oh, give me more time and I will make you missiles like the humans build! I will build a device that will carry Artemis to the stars! Then Nyro’s voice will be heard across the galaxy!’

The pulse bombs rumbled overhead, the strange buzzing noise of their engines resonating against each other.

‘We had to tune the combustion chambers to a precise pitch for each one,’ explained Ada. ‘Listen, how they each sound a different note. Listen to how they build chords in the sky! The harmonies resonate against each other! We are building a symphony from the battlefield.’

‘Oh yes!’ shrieked Calor, slashing her claws once more. ‘Oh yes! I can hear it!’

Mad, thought Kavan. They’re all mad.

More human guns detonated around the perimeter of the compound. More Storm Troopers moved forward, more bazookas firing. More infantryrobots running forward, closer to breaching the perimeter.

‘Nearly there,’ said Spoole, the excitement in his voice. ‘And then the second offensive begins! Are you ready Sandale? Are you ready, Generals?’

The Generals had scratched wire wool across their bodies, dulling the shiny surfaces. They carried rifles and blades, they wore grenades and determined expressions.

‘We’re ready!’

Kavan was impressed to note the steel in their eyes. They were going to attack, he was sure of that much. After that… he would just have to wait and see.

More of the pulse-bomb devices buzzed overhead. But now white tracer was streaming up from the smaller of the two human spaceships lying there in the middle of the compound. The tracer caught the missiles, exploding one of them overhead, the force of the blast knocking Kavan and the rest to the ground. Some of the robots didn’t stand up again.

‘Lights,’ said Calor, peering into the night. ‘All over the human compound. They are running this way and that. Climbing into vehicles. Coming to meet us.’

Yellow and red flames flared up inside the compound, they arced up and over the perimeter fence to drop down on the infantryrobots just beyond, disintegrating their bodies, flinging shrapnel everywhere, damaging the fence itself.

‘Now,’ said Kavan. ‘Generals! Redeem yourselves!’

The Generals stamped the ground. They began to march forward, they broke into a jog, and then they ran. All around them, shuffling forward through the marshalling yard, the infantry-robots and Storm Troopers and Scouts saw them and began to do the same. A grey and black flood, flecked in silver, was unleashed towards the compound, rolling forward to the accompaniment of the buzzing symphony in the sky.

Kavan and his entourage began to walk forward too, following the advance.

‘Something new,’ shrieked Calor. ‘Can you hear it?’

They all picked up on it. A rising note, engines spinning to life.

‘Something’s moving!’ called Calor. ‘The ship! One of the ships is taking off!’

‘That’s their gun platform,’ said a nearby robot. ‘That’s the one that attacked us back when we first tried to take Artemis.’

A dark shape was rising from the centre of the compound. As Kavan watched, lights moved across the shape.

‘Ada! Bring it down! Bring it down now!’

Ada was speaking into a radio.

‘Ninety seconds!’ she said. ‘We have to bring the next trains up to speed.’

‘Will it work?’ shouted Kavan. He could hear the roar of the diesel engines in the distance.’

‘It’ll work,’ said Ada. ‘Will your troops be ready?’

‘They’ll be ready.’ And, in an uncharacteristic moment of doubt, Kavan added, ‘Let’s hope what Goeppert told us about the whalers is right!’

The human craft rose higher. White flame spurted from its nose, missiles slamming down on the attacking troops beneath. The pulse bombs that dodged and rolled in the sky, chasing the helicopters, now turned their attention towards the rising ship, flinging themselves towards it, running themselves into the needle missiles it fired, exploding in balls of flame that illuminated the grey and black battlefield below. The humans were also bringing new guns into position: mobile guns on vehicles, they poured their fire into the solid mass of troops that crept inexorably towards them.

‘Sixty seconds!’ called Ada.

The ship was turning as it rose, sliding towards the city. Black and gold bands travelled slowly down its length, and Kavan recognized the meaning. It was signalling a warning. Two hatches opened beneath the craft, and smaller craft, very much like Ada’s own pulse bombs, fell from them. Their tails ignited as they fell and with a lurch they streaked towards Kavan, passing over his head in blur of flame. Heading for the Centre City.

‘Get down,’ said Ada. They fell to the ground just as the repeated percussion of the explosions shook the earth. White light glowed so hard it burned into the eyes, dark shadows tore the brightness apart.

‘Atomics,’ said Ada. There was a moment’s pause on the battlefield. Robots looked back to the clouds that rose, dark above the centre of the city.

‘They hit the Centre City,’ said Calor. ‘Wiped it out…’

‘Thirty seconds,’ said Ada.

The noise of the battlefield was increasing. Even with hearing turned right down it rattled the shell: the rumble of diesel engines, the noise of trains on tracks, thunder of explosions, chatter of gun shots, the drone of pulse bombs, rippling of human guns, pulsing of pressure, crackle of the first of the Tesla towers discharging. The night sky was alive with dancing devices, trails of tracer, and now, rising higher and higher, launched from the trains, the remainder of Ada’s devices. The ones that Kavan had held in reserve, streaking towards the human craft, each trailing a long cable behind it.

‘Rocket engines,’ said Ada with satisfaction. ‘Harder to build. Harder to manoeuvre.’

They moved fast. But not fast enough. The human ship rippled with light as its weapons picked them off, the guns on the ground turned upwards to destroy them.

The infantryrobots took advantage of the lull and surged forward, breaching the compound perimeter, and the guns turned their fire back to earth again. And so the first of the new devices finally saw a pathway and struck home, piercing the human craft. The long wire trailing from it looped down to the ground.

‘The barbs should extend on impact,’ said Ada. Robots were already running forward, seizing hold of the cable. Pulling at it. To no avail. The craft was rising into the air, dragging them up with it. More devices streaking forward. Piercing the craft. More cables. Storm Troopers took hold of them, other robots gripping their bodies. Bazookas and guns were trained on the craft. The orange bands of light that ran the craft’s extent flickered, the ascent hesitated, halted, and slowly, the black and gold ship began to tilt sideways.

‘Pull!’ called Ada. ‘Pull!’

‘Pull, Pull,’ came the shout, echoed by all those robots on the plain that dragged at the huge ship.

More devices slammed into the craft, cables whipping across the battlefield, tangling around robots, cutting them in two. Other robots took their place, seizing the ropes and pulling. Robots climbed the wires, adding their weight to the craft. Wires snapped and robots tumbled to the ground. But some of them made it inside the craft itself. The turning point was reached. The craft was descending.

‘Pull!’

They were whaling. Whaling for a craft from another planet. It slid earthwards, it clipped the perimeter of the compound. The lights across its hull winked, once, twice and then went out. With a grinding shriek, the ship ploughed its way into the ground.

Stamp, stamp, stamp!

A huge cheer sounded.

‘Now, take it!’ said Kavan, and he smiled.

The Generals ran towards the stricken human craft, the last bands of colour fading from its side.

Spoole would have put a bullet through their heads. Kavan was a fool to put them in the middle of the charge, where they could let the other soldiers form a protective wall around themselves and allow better robots to take the flak for them.

‘The guns!’ called Sandale. ‘Aim for the guns!’

Obediently, the surrounding Storm Troopers turned their bazookas towards the turrets that had sprung open on the downed craft’s side and were already rippling bullets towards them.

As they closed on the craft its enormous size became apparent, and Spoole was filled with wonder at just what the Generals had attempted. How could they have been so foolish as to try and make a deal with these creatures? Just how powerful were the humans in comparison? He was reminded of the story of Janet Verdigris, how she had made a deal with the robots beneath the world.

Something screamed like a buzzsaw being crushed by an adamantium snake; something whipped across the battlefield and half the robots beside him flashed and died, their bodies had been sliced in two, the parts tumbling to the ground.

‘There!’ cried Sandale, and Spoole saw something hurtling forward through the crowd.

‘The devices!’ observed Spoole. ‘More of them!’

They looked up to see Ada’s inventions streaking overhead, heading towards the second and larger of the human craft as it rose into the air, seeking escape. Its bulk blocked the sky above them.

‘Idiots!’ screamed Sandale. ‘Trailing cable through the battlefield! Don’t they realize they could hit us?’

He still hadn’t got it, reflected Spoole. He still didn’t see that he was expendable.

An explosion up ahead drew his attention back to the battlefield.

‘We breached it!’ called a Storm Trooper. ‘We blew a hole in the side!’

Spoole looked and saw. The grounded ship was ripped open near the nose. Infantryrobots were already forcing their way in, peeling back lovely long strips of the strange human alloy.

‘We’re in!’ shouted Sandale. ‘Robots of Artemis! Attack!’

The call was unnecessary. What else would the robots do? Spoole watched as the Generals assumed control of the capture of the spaceship. They were back in power already.

Kavan was a fool, he thought once more.

Susan’s body had been broken when she was hurled from the troop train as it ran off the end of the lines at speed. Two engineers had found her and quickly put her back together again, then sent her on her way. She joined the other infantryrobots heading towards the human compound. And then the air had filled with so much metal that she had dropped, terrified, in a shell hole, and waited for the battle to stop.

A Storm Trooper sheltered there too, and she had felt his shame as he crouched there, big black hands clasped above his head. He had said something she couldn’t catch amidst all the noise.

Eventually the firing passed over, and she raised her head up to see the smaller of the human ships rising into the air, the target of those strange devices that streaked towards it, dragging cables of destruction through the battlefield behind them. Several of the devices became entangled and were jerked to a halt in mid air, ripping themselves apart in red and yellow fire.

She saw the ship fall and break itself open on the ground, and she paused, gripped by indecision. Where would Nettie be? On the craft? In the compound?

What good would it do her if she got killed here on the battlefield?

There were engineers everywhere, running across the stony plain. One came towards her, shouting. Susan turned up her ears a little to hear what he was saying.

‘Take this,’ he said, thrusting a metal mesh into her hand. ‘Pull it over your head. Don’t take it off until you’re told to.’

She did so automatically. The mesh interfered with her hearing, muffling it. Well, that was good.

The second human ship was lifting up now. What if Nettie was on board that one? The devices were aiming for it, but it seemed just too large to bring down. What if it escaped with Nettie still a prisoner?

There was nothing she could do about that.

She made up her mind and ran for the compound. Maybe Nettie would be there.

She couldn’t just stand still, that was for sure.

Kavan saw the second human ship lift into the breaking dawn, the cables of several devices trailing uselessly from it.

‘It’s escaping,’ said Ada, the disappointment audible in her voice.

‘It will be back,’ said Kavan. ‘They’ll all be back.’

‘The Generals have taken the first craft,’ said Calor. ‘Do you think it’s wise to leave them in control of it?’

‘I don’t think it matters,’ said Kavan. ‘Everything will be different by tomorrow. Artemis City is changed for ever.’

Behind him the Centre City burned. Ada had set up a radiation detector that pinged a signal of the atomic destruction there.

‘Calor,’ said Kavan. ‘There are still humans left in the compound. I think it would be well to remind the troops we want as many of them alive as possible.’

‘Okay, Kavan.’ Calor’s words trailed behind her as she sprinted off.

‘She needed to expend the energy,’ observed Ada. She watched Kavan, running the fine metal mesh she had handed him between his fingers.

‘You should put that on,’ she said.

‘When it’s time. Are you sure it will work?’

‘The Faraday Cage? It’s the best solution given the time we’ve had. The humans will want to inflict maximum damage over the widest range.’

‘I notice you haven’t put yours on yet.’

‘What we have been told is plausible, but I want to see if it’s true. I want to see this weapon as best I can. I want to learn as much about it as possible, and so I’ll put my cage on at the last second.’

‘And if you die?’

‘Then there are other engineers to take my place.’

Kavan smiled.

‘You are a true Artemisian, Ada.’

‘Look, here it comes.’

The second ship had climbed out of view, lost in the pale dawn sky. Now something was falling back down to Penrose. Kavan could just make out the lightning forking around it.

‘It’s beautiful,’ he said. ‘In its own way.’

‘There is something strangely beautiful in everything the animals do,’ replied Ada. ‘It’s an unearthly, twisted beauty, but it’s there if you know where to look.’

The device was falling faster now. Kavan saw the lightning reaching down from it, seeking the robots of the battlefield, most of whom were pausing to pull the mesh over their heads. It was like waves in the water, all those silver and black bodies kneeling for a moment and pulling.

‘What about the humans left behind?’ asked Kavan. ‘Will they die too?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Ada. ‘Perhaps the animals are closer to being Artemisians than we allow.’

‘Put on your mesh, Ada.’

‘Not yet. You put on yours, Kavan. You’re more important than I am.’

‘That concept does not exist in Artemis.’

They gazed upwards as the crackling fell ever closer, illuminating the brightening sky in blue and silver. The robots on the field gazed upwards in awe and horror as the few remaining humans continued to fire at them. The Centre City burned in the background and Ada and Kavan found themselves looking at each other, and for the first time in his life he felt a sense of understanding.

They both pulled on their meshes. The lighting raced across the battlefield…

Spoole had seen this before. Battlefields where defeat had been bought at such cost to those still standing that it could scarcely be said that victory had been won.

The humans had been driven from Artemis, but Artemis City was broken, and the surviving robots wandered aimlessly across the plain.

There were so many robots dead. Robots who had failed to pull the protective mesh across their heads, or those who had simply never received one. Their bodies were pulled apart and picked over by others looking for spares.

There were humans there too, so fragile-looking in defeat. For the most part they were under the guard of infantryrobots, but a few of them wandered free, or attempted to fix their broken vehicles under the interested gaze of engineers.

If there was one impetus left to those shell-shocked forces, it seemed to be the force that was driving robots towards the downed ship. It lay, huge and alien in the middle of the plain, halfway between the remains of the compound and the shattered city, trails of plastic and soot and cable and spent metal radiating out from it. Robots were congregating around its broken side.

Spoole walked to the centre of the crowd, the robots who saw him coming recognizing him and pulling back as he approached. He made his way to where the surviving Generals still stood. San-dale was there.

‘Spoole,’ he said, all polite efficiency. ‘What are your orders?’

His deference made sense, he supposed. It was woven deep inside: Sandale had tried rebellion and had failed, but that wouldn’t stop him clinging to power by any means. And if, in a few weeks, or months, or years, he thought it safe, then he would turn upon Spoole again. Him and the rest of the Generals.

‘Orders will come soon,’ said Spoole. ‘For the moment, round up the surviving humans.’

Spoole looked around at the wreckage, looked around at all the robots. They were waiting for him to speak, he realized.

He turned his voice up full.

‘This is only a temporary victory,’ he called, and as he had done so many times before, he heard his words relayed out through the listening crowd. ‘Only temporary. The animals will return. They have more metal, they have better machinery. They have the capability to destroy us.’

He paused. He saw the robots shifting, heard the hum and the buzz as his words sank in.

‘But to despair is to have forgotten the lessons of history, because it was ever thus!’ he cried. ‘Robots stood on this plain before, surrounded by superior forces and technology, and they triumphed over them. Those robots had little metal, they were few in number, but they had something more powerful than guns and flying craft and bombs! They had Nyro’s philosophy!’

Somewhere in the crowd, feet were stamped. One, two, just like in the old days, back when Spoole addressed the newly built troops on the parade grounds.

‘Well, I say that those same robots stand here today! Because today, all of you who have fought on this battleground are the true children of Nyro! And Nyro’s children were not defeated in the past, back when Artemis was young, and so they will not be defeated in the future. Artemis will never be defeated!’

More stamping, but this time there were shouts too. Shouts of approval. Spoole saw the way the Generals looked at him. Envious, but there was a grudging respect there as well. They couldn’t have done this, he knew. They needed a figurehead. For the moment it may as well be Spoole.

‘The animals will return,’ he called. ‘When they do, we will be ready for them! We will have studied their craft and we will have built our own machines. We will take the fight to them, and we will defeat them!’

The earth shook now to the sound of stamping. A group of Storm Troopers took up a chant that was spreading through the metal ranks.

‘Spoole! Spoole! Spoole!’

He raised his hands for silence. Gradually, order returned.

‘No,’ he said. ‘Not Spoole. Listen to me Artemisians, I have a confession to make.’

The crowd was silent, ears were turned up to listen.

‘Nyro herself said it,’ said Spoole, ‘that there is no mind, there is just metal. I realized over the past few weeks that maybe my mind wasn’t woven as true as I once believed. Perhaps my mother was too concerned with this metal -’ he tapped his hand against his body, ‘- to the detriment of Artemis itself. Perhaps I wasn’t the only one to think that way.’

He looked again at the surviving Generals.

Silence. Nothing but the hiss of the breeze through metal seams.

‘Not perhaps,’ Spoole corrected himself. ‘There is no doubt. The leadership of Artemis has been poor lately, there is no denying it.’

Sandale’s eyes flashed, but he remained quiet. How could he do otherwise, when shouts of agreement came from the crowd? Sandale lowered his head.

‘But all this changes today. There can be no longer any doubt who the true leader of Artemis is. Bring him forward now. Bring forward Kavan!’

The shout went out; heads turned this way and that. And they focussed on the dusty, insignificant infantryrobot who made his way towards Spoole. An electric surge ran through the crowd as they strained to see Kavan, the hero, the feared, the robot who had conquered all of Shull.

Robots cleared a path as he made his way forward, flanked by a blue engineer and a silver Scout. The three of them came to a halt before Spoole. Spoole looked the infantryrobot up and down.

‘Kavan,’ he said. ‘What would you have us do now?’

The silence lengthened. And then Kavan spoke.

‘Seek another leader.’

A hum of current rippled through the robots.

‘But… but why?’

Kavan was matter of fact.

‘Because our time has passed. Look at this place, look at that ship, lying broken over there. Our minds are not woven for these times.’

‘Then who?’ demanded Sandale, suddenly bold.

‘I don’t know,’ said Kavan, fixing the General with a stare. ‘Maybe someone like Ada here, someone who understands machinery.’

‘Not me!’ laughed the blue engineer.

‘No,’ agreed Kavan. ‘Not you. Maybe you could understand what makes this craft work, but that wouldn’t mean you could understand the minds of those who have built it. We need a new leader. Someone whose mind was not fixed at birth. Someone who will look at this new situation in which we find ourselves and will be able to respond to it in a new way, not in a pattern laid down by his mother, years ago.’

‘Does such a person exist?’

‘If they do, they will present themselves.’

Spoole was aware of the movement from the side. He saw two robots pushing their way forward. One wore the body of an infantry-robot, but awkwardly, as if he wasn’t really used to it. The other wore an oversized body of lead and iron, a badly designed thing that was surely hurting the robot inside. The infantryrobot spoke.

‘Who are you?’ asked Spoole.

The robot looked at Spoole. ‘Someone who was listening to what you said. Someone whose mind was not fixed at birth. Someone who has walked this continent from top to bottom and has finished his journey with more questions than when he started. Someone who has heard the story of Eric and the Mountain, and now knows that he must lead.’

‘That was the philosophy of Turing City,’ said Kavan. ‘This robot is from Turing City. I think he’s right. The Turing Citizen should be your new leader.’’

‘Turing City is no more,’ said Karel. ‘And neither is Artemis. All that is left is metal. It’s up to us how we twist it now.’

‘You would suggest a Tokvah tells us how to twist metal?’ said Sandale, the faintest edge of disgust in his voice.

‘My mind wasn’t made in Artemis, either,’ said Kavan. ‘And yet you would allow me to lead you. These two robots are responsible for the metal mesh we all carry. If not for them, then there would be no Artemis today. We would all be dead, our minds destroyed by the electric bomb. So yes, Sandale. I say let’s listen to Karel when he tells us how to twist metal.’

‘But how do we twist it?’ asked Spoole.

Karel looked at the heavy lead robot for support.

‘I don’t know,’ he began. ‘… yet. But Kavan knows part of the answer, he will know how to make robots that will fight. He will command our troops and direct them against the enemy, when they return. This engineer will know another part, robots that can take the animal’s technology and twist it to our own ends. But there is more than that.’

‘What more could there be?’ demanded Sandale.

‘I don’t know,’ replied Karel. ‘And that’s it. None of us know what else there is. I don’t think we understand this world, I don’t think we see it as it really is. We caught a hint of that at the top of Shull, didn’t we, Kavan?’

Kavan’s eyes flared just a little at that, but he said nothing.

Karel looked at the leaden robot standing at his side.

‘Melt and I have travelled the length and breadth of this continent, and we have seen and heard fragments of other truths that are not woven directly into the mind.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean stories that are passed orally from robot to robot, stories that have taken on a life of their own, and avoided the censor of whatever philosophy has been adopted by the state that the mother belongs to. There are other ways for robots to build bodies than this one.’

He held his arms wide. ‘I’ve even met one such robot.’

Although they spoke quietly, their words were relayed out through the surrounding crowds. Electronic voices rose and fell as the messages reached the edges of the crowd.

Karel raised his voice.

‘This world isn’t what we’ve made ourselves believe it is,’ he called. ‘If we are to make it our own, we need to understand it. We need to see the truth about ourselves. We take so much for granted. Minds. The night moon. All of these things. If we do not write our own stories, then these animals will write them for us! They may already have done so! I saw the warning written at the top of Shull. So did Kavan. The Story of Eric and the Mountain.’

‘The Story of Eric and the Mountain?’ said Kavan.

‘Melt here knows it! He told it to me, and I think I understand what it means. Not just the Story itself, but all stories. Maybe even the Book of Robots.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Think of this. Imagine, years ago, there were robots living here on Penrose who saw the truth.’

‘What truth?’

‘I don’t know! Maybe a truth that was to be hidden from us. Maybe a truth that someone or something was trying to hide from us. Someone or something much, much more powerful than us.’

‘Like the humans?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe. But I don’t think so. I think there is a deeper truth at work here. Maybe one that the robots of the past understood a little of, one they wove into the minds of their children. But what of all the other children? How would they let them know?’

‘By stories,’ said Ada. ‘I see. That’s so clever, two ways for information to pass on.’ Her eyes shone as she contemplated the thought. ‘Hard wired, and a way of modifying data.’

‘The stories are a message to us from our past,’ repeated Karel. ‘We need to understand them!’

He was interrupted by a commotion in the crowd. A robot was pushing its way forward.

‘Karel! Karel!’

Spoole recognized the voice. So did Karel. They both turned. Yet another infantryrobot was running towards them, and Spoole reflected how the most ordinary body in Artemis had proven to be the most influential. Karel was obviously not thinking such thoughts. His eyes glowed in wonder at the sight of the approaching woman.

‘Susan,’ he said.

‘Karel!’

‘This is your husband?’ said Spoole, but they weren’t listening to him, and why should they?

Susan was humming with electricity. The current shone around her, eclipsing even the glow that poured forth from Karel’s body. To robot eyes, it was as if they were surrounded by two haloes. The two robots approached each other and a hum of feedback escaped from both their mouths, so perfectly were they in phase with each other.

It all came down to this, thought Spoole. All this fighting, just because robots made more robots.

‘Oh, Karel,’ said Susan.

‘Susan.’

They placed their heads close together and listened to the signal hum of each others minds.

For the moment, there was nothing else to be said.

Calor ran through the streets of Artemis City. She could feel the thump of machinery re-awakening, hear the sound of lathes beginning to turn once more, see the robots at work stripping down the damaged buildings, clearing away the wreckage of the fighting.

She turned left by a ruptured gasometer, and headed up a long road bordered on either side by cable walks, empty now of cable after the last attack. Soon the machines inside would turn again and more cable would be wound to the glory of Artemis. Or was it Turing City now? Both Kavan and Karel said that names didn’t matter any more.

Either way, Calor was free to run for the moment, and with a surge of pleasure she put on a spurt of speed, running, flashing, down the street with the single joy of a robot meeting the purpose woven into her mind. She saw the puff in the dust ahead, tried to dodge, but she was moving too quickly…

Her feet were gone, sliced clean off by the razor wire stretched across her path. She raised herself up on her hands, turned around, saw the Storm Troopers who emerged from the doorways on either side, heading towards her.

She waited until they were close enough and then exploded into movement, slashing out with the blades of one hand, slicing into the panelling of the leader, blue sparks leaping from his chest; but there were too many of them. They pushed her to the ground, twisted her arms back behind her, snapped them off, one, two. They did the same with what remained of her legs, then they dragged her off the street, pulling her into a cable run.

‘I recognize you,’ said one. ‘Kavan’s Spartz. You were with him back in the north, back when he was first raising his army. I saw you there. Do you recognize me?’

‘Let your wire rust, Tok,’ she giggled, half mad on current and pain.

‘You’re the one who will rust. We’ll tear out your mind and leave it covered in salt water for a few weeks. Leave it for Kavan to find. Maybe he’ll get the message then. Artemis isn’t going to be run by some Tokvah from Turing City.’

‘Who do you think should run it? The animals?’

‘Artemisians, Spartz. How about if I made new arms for you? I could do that. Take you with us when we leave this place, give you arms so you can twist us new minds, help us to build the new Artemisian army. You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Just you and us?’

‘Yes,’ said Calor. ‘Go on then. Put my arms back on. I’ll weave minds for you.’

The Storm Troopers laughed.

‘I don’t think so. We need to send a message to Kavan, and you’re it. I wonder, does it hurt to feel your mind gradually rusting away?’

‘Perhaps you’ll find out someday. You won’t defeat Kavan. You Storm Troopers never could. He was always too clever a leader for you.’

‘But he’s not leader any more, is he?’

The big robot leaned forward and squeezed her head, popping the metal apart there. He picked away at the seams, getting at her mind.

‘Will you tell him I was coming back to him?’ she said, worried about this above all else.

They didn’t answer. A hand reached down to break her coil.

And that was it.

Darkness.

Silence.

Calor was fifteen years old. She could expect to live for another twenty-five or thirty years in this awful isolation. Unless of, of course, the Storm Troopers followed through on their promise to drop her mind into salt water. It would be a mercy.

Twenty-five years of silence, twenty-five years without the sound of another robot. Twenty-five years without sunlight, or the feel of ground beneath her feet, without the joy of running, sprinting, slashing at the air with her hands for the sheer pleasure of it. No more polishing metal, straightening wire. Never more to feel oil, slippery between her joints.

And all the while, the world passing by outside, untouched, unknowing. Where would the animals be? Where would Kavan be?

Would anything come of Karel’s plans to find out the truth behind the world? Did such a truth exist?

What did Calor care? She was made to run, and fight. No longer.

Nothing but the sound of her own thoughts.

Nothing but the reflection of her memory.

No sense of passing time.

Silence. Darkness.

So many other robots, just like her. Scattered across the battlefields of Shull. She had never given them any thought before.

Silence.

So faint, she must have imagined it.

She heard it again, a voice, in the distance. She realized now that it had always been there, but in the past it had been drowned out by the noise and brightness of the world around her.

She could hear it now though. It was speaking to her.

Hello, Calor.

Two robots were making love in the middle of a battlefield.

‘Don’t leave me again, Karel,’ said Susan, twisting his wire in her hands.

‘I don’t want to have to,’ said Karel. It wasn’t the promise she wanted, and they both knew it.

‘I’d stay with you,’ said Susan. He knew that of course. That’s one reason why he had agreed to the making of a child so readily. It would be a way of keeping her in safety if he found himself heading into danger in the coming battle. It was the only thing that would work. It was woven into Susan’s mind to love and protect Karel. Only the motherhood urge would be stronger.

‘I’ve reached the point,’ she said. ‘Have you decided?’

‘Yes,’ said Karel. ‘A little girl.’

He would be thinking of Axel, their little boy. She was, too. But life went on.

‘A little girl. Have you thought of a name?’

‘Emily.’

Emily, a lovely name for a lovely child, due to be born in these less than lovely times.

Susan paused, looking at him.

‘Her nature comes next,’ she said. ‘Are you sure you want me to weave her that way?’

‘Yes!’ he said. ‘Make Emily curious about everything! Make her ask what and how and why. Always why, and never to accept any answer at face value.’

‘But that will render the weave so far pointless. If she questions everything we have made her to be-’

‘But that’s just the point!’ said Kavan, and he gazed up at the stars. ‘It’s like that human woman said: we robots aren’t very curious. Is that any surprise when we ask our mothers to weave our beliefs directly into our children? Who would want to weave in curiosity if it were-’

‘We’re doing this because of what some human woman said?’

‘It’s right, Susan. I know it’s right. Do you believe me?’

It didn’t matter whether she did or not. She would follow him, whatever he did. At least Emily would have a choice in what she did.

She continued with the weave. There was so much power in the wire, she now knew. Ada had talked about nuclear fusion, about hydrogen adsorption. Kavan had talked about the humans returning. They wanted that power.

‘Do you trust Kavan?’ she asked, suddenly. ‘You only lead with his approval, you know. If he ever decides otherwise you will be ousted before the day is out.’

‘I know that.’ He looked at her moving hands, wanting to think of happier things. ‘What are you weaving now?’

‘Her sense of self, of otherness.’

‘Will you make her like me? Angry? Angry enough to change things?’

‘Of course I will. I love you, Karel. How could I do anything else?’

‘We’re so strange, aren’t we?’ said Karel. ‘Us robots. We do exactly as our mothers told us, and yet we are all so different. So simple, and so complex at the same time.’

‘It seems normal to me,’ replied Susan, twisting his wire further. The thought of Nyro’s pattern kept rising in her mind, and she had to push it away. All those nights spent in the making rooms. So many times she had wondered if she could have ever done this again. But if she hadn’t, that would have been another victory for Artemis.

‘They never found Nettie, did they?’ she said.

‘Your friend? No. Perhaps she was on the ship that escaped.’

‘I hope so. Do you think they will bring her back?’

‘I don’t know. You said they wanted our minds.’

‘Something about the power there. The fact that we didn’t need fuel. The humans were very excited by that.’

Something stirred within her. The faintest edge of curiosity. Maybe Karel was right, that this world was stranger than she thought.

‘What was that story, the one that Melt told you?’

‘The Story of Eric and the Mountain.’

‘He’s a strange robot, Melt. Are you sure he can be trusted?’

‘I think so. There is a deep sense of honour within him, I know that.’

‘Where does he come from?’

‘He won’t say. I think he’s deeply ashamed of his past, that’s one of the things that convinces me he is honourable, funnily enough. He’s met the humans before, though. He knew about the Faraday Cage. He told the Artemisians; he got them to send the message to all their troops.’

‘I heard.’

Karel looked up at the stars, tried to enjoy the pleasurable feeling of Susan pulling at his wire. But all the time his mind wandered back to Melt, the way he had almost pleaded to be allowed to guard Susan, as he had done Karel on his journey south. It seemed to be important to the big robot. A way of redeeming himself.

‘If anything happens to me, you will be safe with Melt.’

‘I don’t want anything to happen to you.’ Susan twisted his wire in an odd loop. ‘Almost done,’ she said. ‘There is a little wire left. Are you ready? Are you sure that you want me to put it in?’

‘I’m sure,’ said Karel. ‘Every robot should know this. From now on, this story will be woven into every robot’s mind.’

‘Then tell me,’ said Susan.

‘Very well,’ said Karel, and he began.

The Story of Eric and the Mountain

‘When the ancient town of Ell was still young, before the tribes of Yukawa were united by the Emperor, before Ban province had learned the secret of animal husbandry, there lived a robot called Eric.’

‘This story is set in Yukawa?’ said Susan. ‘I had never heard of that place until yesterday.’

‘I’m sure that is where Melt comes from. He told this story as if it were woven into his mind. Now listen.

‘Eric was the adopted son of Ben-Ji, the owner of one of Ell’s principle forges. Now, it must be understood that the robots of Yukawa have a different culture to those of Shull, and the robots of Ell are unusual even in Yukawa, and this story happened a long time ago when Ell was a very different place to today. So if you find what happened in Ben-Ji’s forge strange, or even distasteful, then just remember that this is how things were in those days.’

Susan was staring at him.

‘This is our child we are making,’ she reminded him.

‘This is how Melt told me the story,’ explained Karel. He continued, using the same sing-song style in which Melt had related the story to him.

‘Now I must explain that Ben-Ji’s forge was known as a making forge. When a man and a woman wanted to make a child then they would go to his forge and look at the fine metals he had on display there. Pure iron and copper and aluminium and lead. The best steel, graded according to use. Metal available as plates and ingots and wire. Gold leaf so fine, silver wire, even phosphorus and sodium stored under oil. Jars of mercury, sheets of tungsten, and, there in the back, molybdenum and palladium. Even, it was rumoured, the eka metals: eka mercury and eka lead.’

‘Do they really exist?’ wondered Susan, her eyes glowing.

‘I don’t know! Susan, please don’t interrupt!’

‘So a couple would enter the forge, the woman full of thoughts and poetry and ideas, pregnant with the thoughts of the mind she would soon twist, and she would walk with her man as they examined the metals on offer. They would tell Ben-Ji and his wife Khafool what sort of a mind they planned to make, and then Ben-Ji and Khafool would give them advice on the metal to choose and the body they should construct. And any other robots who were in the forge would also pass on advice, and in this way the day would pass, until eventually the man would sit down, and the woman kneel before him, and, guided by the advice of all those present, a new mind would be twisted by the woman from the metal she drew forth from the man. The robots produced by the Ben-Ji forge were strong and wise and prospered in the city of Ell, and so the reputation of the Ben-Ji forge grew.

‘Now, Eric worked in the forge, but he was unhappy in his work. The only thing that gladdened his mind was the sight of Khalah, the daughter of Ben-Ji and Khafool. For Khalah had a good mind, a thing of symmetry and elegance and beauty. She built her body of the finest materials available to the forge. She crafted it well, mixing metals and alloys to form long struts of a pleasing curve, electromuscles of the most cunning weave, and polished aluminium panels that shone under the sun in the daylight and reflected the red glow of the forge through the night.

‘Khalah loved the forge and her family, and she loved Eric as he loved her, yet she was filled with disquiet, for as long as Eric was unhappy, she could never be truly happy herself. So, one cold autumn day as they stood before the forge, a day when the frost was heavy on the metal bosses and brackets of the doors, the ice was frozen in rings around edges of the puddles and troughs, and the sky was blue and misty, on that day she challenged him.

‘“Eric,” she said. “Why are you always so sad? You are a good smith, good enough to impress my father, and there are few robots who can do that. My mother approves our match, and some day we shall have this forge for our own, and we can go on building it in strength and stature. Is that not a good thing?”

‘“It is Khalah, it is indeed. Yet I do not feel that I belong here.”

‘“You were not made here, Eric, it is true. Your mind is different, and you construct your body in a style foreign to those who live here, but there is much to be recommended in you, and, as I have said, no less an authority than my mother has suggested that we are compatible and shall weave strong children together. What do your origins matter?”

‘Eric hammered at the red iron he held over the anvil, hammered his frustration into the metal.

‘“What do they matter, Khalah? I was found at the foot of the High Spires by your father. He brought me back here and cared for me, and the people of this town accepted me as their own. They gave me metal and taught me how to weave it in their fashion. My origins shouldn’t matter. Yet they do. A thought lives on in my mind. Look over there. ..”

‘He pointed to the distant peaks of the High Spires. The mountaintops were sharp in the cold air, rising clear of the misty foothills. Snow gleamed white and crisp; Eric almost felt their chill from here.

‘“Do you see the High Spires. Do you see the group over there in the centre? The Crown, they are called. There is something up there, Khalah, hidden amongst the peaks.”

‘“What is it?”

‘“I don’t know. It is there at the edge of my mind. Sometimes it is a sword, made of the first metal, the first metal to think thoughts. Sometimes it is a body made of katana metal, an indestructible body. Sometimes it is just metal itself. But precious metal. A ball of eka lead perhaps, or the metal that lies beyond that.”

‘“I have heard the stories,” said Khalah. “The stories of the first robots, Alpha and Gamma, how they crossed the High Spires, and left some of their treasures up there for safe keeping, before they stepped into this land.”

‘“Khalah, the stories are true! I know it. I came from the High Spires, the pictures are there in my mind. Now I must return there to find those treasures.”

‘“What about me?”

‘“Come with me, Khalah!”

‘“My father would never allow it! I must stay here at the forge with my mother!”

‘“I know that, but Khalah, I must go.”

‘There was a long silence as Khalah contemplated his words. She knew she could not leave the forge, she also knew she could not bear to be parted from Eric. The two urges were powerful within her, so powerful they threatened to rip her in two, or so she thought. In the end her path was obvious.

‘“Then I will come with you,” she said.’

‘And so, later that day, when the forge was full, and Ben-Ji and Khalah were hard at work tending to a man and woman who twisted metal, Eric and Khalah left the city of Ell and set out towards the High Spires.

‘They did not take the main road that led south to the mountain pass, but rather walked through the wastelands that lay to the sides. In those days much of the land of Yukawa was overgrown with grass and twisted trees. Animals walked freely, and these watched Khalah and Eric as they headed south. The robots’ metal soon became dented and scratched from the journey, their electromuscle sodden from fording the cold streams and rivers that tumbled down from the mountains.

‘There was no fire to be found in the wastelands, save what Khalah could kindle from the dead wood that lay on the ground, and the fire she could make was a poor cool thing, not hot enough to fix the damage that their bodies suffered. Eric saw how Khalah’s once smooth and shiny body was now nothing but a network of scratches and scuffs and dents, he saw how she looked away from herself to the grass and the stones and tried not think about what she had become, and Eric felt ashamed at this. He pushed his hand into hers and sent a current down his own electromuscle and into hers.

‘“Thank you, Khalah,” he said.

‘“I will follow you anywhere, Eric.”

‘“I would do the same for you, Khalah.”

‘She was too noble to ask him to follow her back to her father’s forge.

‘And so they walked south towards the mountains, and as they did they saw, in the distance, the other robots who searched for them, for Ben-Ji loved his daughter, and he had not given up hope of finding her.

‘This saddened Khalah further, for she loved her father.

‘But she loved Eric more.’

‘After some weeks they came to the edge of the High Spires. The glassy rock rose up above them, piercing the very skies.

‘“What now, Eric?” asked Khalah.

‘“There is a way up, Khalah. I can feel it in my mind. If we walk along the base of the mountains in the direction of the rising sun, we will find it.”

‘They wandered east. After two days, at the rising of the sun, they saw a ledge that tilted from the ground and ran upwards.

‘“That is the path,” said Eric. “If we follow that ledge it will lead us up into the mountains, up to the treasures.”

‘“Then let us take it,” said Khalah.

‘“Yes, but…” His voice faltered.

‘“What’s the matter, Eric?”

‘“Khalah, now that I see the path, my thoughts have awoken some more, and I can see that this is not enough. Two of us will not be sufficient to gain the prize.”

‘Khalah gazed at him, her body scratched and dented. She kept her calm. “We are not enough,” she said, patiently. “What do you suggest that we do?”

‘“Your body is in need of attention, Khalah. The road north runs near here. A forge lies there at the foot of the mountains. I say we visit the forge, we repair ourselves. Perhaps we can persuade others to join us.”

‘Khalah was pleased to do this. For though she loved Eric, she craved other company, and she desired to visit the forge and make herself beautiful once more.

‘So they visited the forge. And whilst they were there, they persuaded two more robots to join them on their journey up the mountain, and those two robots persuaded two more, and they persuaded still more, until eventually sixteen of them took the path up into the mountains.

‘It was a long and dangerous journey, a story in itself. Perhaps another time I could speak of the paths of glass, too slippery for a robot to pass, or the caves of spears that thrust themselves into bodies as they passed by, or the creatures with the heads of robots but the bodies of insects that they had to battle with in order to get to their destination, but suffice to say they arrived there.

‘And so Eric and Khalah and their company walked into the centre of a circle of stone pillars, and they looked around.

‘“Is this the right place?” asked Khalah. Her body was battered and damaged once more by the journey. She had seen how empty their destination was, and now, for the first time, she questioned the wisdom of accompanying Eric here. All the robots did.

‘Eric looked around, puzzled.

‘“This is the place…” he said, “I’m sure of it…” And his eyes shone as he recognized something.

‘“There,” he said. “There, near the centre of the circle! See? The hole in the ground.”

‘Now they all saw it. A circular hole, about fifty feet across, smoothly bored into the ground. The wonder was they hadn’t seen it before.

‘“That looks like the den of a mugger snake,” said Khalah. “Only bigger. Much bigger.”

‘“It is,” said Eric. “Go down it, all of you.”

‘“But it will strip our metal away and plate it to its own body!”

‘“Yes. That’s how it feeds. It has grown so large that its body stretches nearly to the bottom of this mountain. It curls around inside the rock below us, but it is so big it can no longer hunt as it used to. So now it brings its prey towards itself.”

‘“But that’s impossible,” said Khalah. “Eric, I’m walking towards the hole. I don’t want to! Stop me!”

‘“I can’t, Khalah. I remember now. This is how it got so large. It’s twisted into our minds to follow the will of the mugger snake. All of us. All of the robots on the plain.”

‘“But how?”

‘“It made us! All of us! Simply as way of extending its range. A way to search out metal beyond the mountains. It made robots and sent us out into the world. And every so often it makes a robot such as me to bring prey back to itself. This is how it finds new metal.”

‘“No!” cried Khalah, and a sound of hissing emerged from her voicebox. “I thought you loved me!”

‘“I do, Khalah. But this is more important than that.”

‘Ahead of them, the first of the robots had stepped over the lip of the borehole, falling into the mugger snake’s maw.

‘“More important?” shrieked Khalah. “How can you say that?”

‘“Well, maybe not more important. Maybe it is an underlying truth on top of which all of our other thoughts dance.”

‘“No! I can’t believe that!”

‘“Well, you are walking into the hole,” observed Eric. “We both are.”

‘And they both stepped over the lip.’

‘The story can’t be true,’ said Susan. ‘If there were no survivors, how did the story get told?’

‘I don’t think that story is true,’ said Karel. ‘It’s an illustration. A warning from the past. A warning that none of us will know the truth until the end. And on that day we will walk unresisting towards the pit, because that is our purpose. That was what we were made for.’

Susan gazed at him with horror, the wire cooling in her hands.

‘You allowed me to make a child, knowing this? Knowing that we were all doomed?’

‘No!’ said Karel. ‘No! That may have been the way we were made, but we are better than that. We can be better than that! Look at Turing City, and all that we achieved! Even Artemis City showed how much robots can achieve through sheer will.

‘That’s why we need to travel north and search out the truth Susan! Because even if someone did make us, and even if they meant us to be nothing more than raw material for some other cause, that doesn’t mean we have to accept it! There is no such thing as destiny, Susan. At least, there doesn’t have to be.’

Susan gazed at him as she cut free the end of the wire that came from his body. She quickly tied it off in the fuse.

‘Here, Karel,’ she said. ‘Here’s our child. Meet Emily.’

‘Hello, Emily,’ said Karel, slipping the newly made mind in the little body they had prepared. They watched as the eyes glowed into life, a beautiful golden yellow.

‘Hello, Emily,’ said Susan.

Karel smiled. Above him, the metal face of the night moon reflected light down onto the plain.

‘Hello Emily,’ repeated Karel. ‘My little girl. You know, don’t you? Because Mummy wove it into you. You know.’

‘What does she know?’ asked Susan.

‘She knows that we don’t have to accept anything. No matter who made us, no matter what our purpose is supposed to be, we don’t have to accept it.’

He gazed into Emily’s golden eyes as he spoke.

‘And we won’t, will we?’