Blood and Iron (40 page)

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘Where you taking me now?’ asked Susan.

‘The Old City.’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Kavan

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

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

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

‘How far?’ asked Kavan.

‘Just under a mile.’

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

‘I
know
I can.’

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

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

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

The advance was remorseless and logical. It was this very logic that Kavan was hoping to exploit: it was so easy to predict where they would be next.

Calor moved forward. The humans had the crate on the ground now; they were unfolding its sides, unaware of the Scout creeping up on them.

She had covered barely one hundred yards when a proximity signal rang out from the craft. The animals’ heads jerked in Kavan’s direction at the same time as Calor sprang forward, releasing stored current through her electromuscles at an incredible rate. She tore forwards, a sandy silver flashing pattern of light, her arms and legs pumping away as she closed the distance.

The humans froze, they stumbled towards their craft, hesitated, returned to the crate, then ran back into the craft. All the time Calor was closing the distance. The humans were inside now, the pitch of the engine increased.

Calor was still too far off, Kavan saw the dust whirling in a pool as the rotors’ speed increased, he saw the black turret at the front of the craft swivel towards the Scout. The craft began to lift, and a line of explosions travelled towards Calor. She easily sidestepped the jumping path that cut across the plain, giving that last desperate burst of speed as the craft lifted higher; she jumped, claws extended . . .

She plunged the blades deep into the side of the machine.

Kavan realized he had just been standing, watching. He remembered his own role and began to run towards the craft himself. The line of explosions turned and began to pick its way across the plain, heading in his direction. Closer it came, and he prepared himself to jump to the side, just as he had seen Calor do, but the line suddenly swung off erratically. The craft was spinning wildly across the sky.

Calor had made it inside.

The luminous green craft twisted this way and that, headed downwards, pulled up at the last moment, lost height again, and dived into the ground, ploughing a furrow of sand. The great blades on the top touched the earth, and Kavan ducked as they tore themselves apart in a reckless fury of metal. Fragments of the blades flew across the plain, tearing more grooves in the sand.

Smoke emerged from the stricken ship. Kavan was running towards it again, going to the aid of Calor. If she had survived.

His muscles hummed as he loped forward, watching for movement from within. Yellow flames slowly slid their way down the rear of the craft.

Nothing. No! A jagged hole was torn open in the front of the craft and something emerged. Something blackened and twisted. Kavan caught a glimpse of silver and realized it was Calor. She fell to the ground, struggled to get up again.

Her body was burned and twisted, the left side of her chest riddled with bullet holes.

‘Get away, Kavan,’ she said. ‘That thing is full of petrol.’

Kavan thrust a shoulder beneath her arm, and half walked, half carried her away from the craft.

‘It might explode,’ she said.

‘You’re too valuable,’ said Kavan.

‘Now I know I’m mad,’ said Calor. ‘Metal must be twisted out of true. I just heard Kavan say that I was too valuable. I’m nothing but metal.’

‘At the moment you’re one of the few robots who know about human craft,’ said Kavan. ‘You’re more valuable than mere metal for the next few days at least.’

The noise of the flames behind them died away. They turned to see white foam oozing from all the cracks in the stricken craft, saw it smothering the flames.

‘Clever,’ said Kavan. ‘Very clever.’

‘Not if you’re stuck inside the craft with it. Not if you need to burn oxygen to make energy like the animals do.’

‘It looks safe to go in now,’ said Kavan.

‘How long do you think we have?’

‘Half an hour at most.’

Kavan raised a hand. A mile away on the plain, the sand and grit began to stir. Ada emerged from the ground, followed by three other blue-panelled robots. They hurried towards the craft.

While the engineers got to work on the craft, Kavan helped Calor strip away the damaged panelling from her chest. They both worked on the mechanism inside.

‘You keep yourself in good repair,’ said Kavan, approvingly.

‘Thank you. I wish I had some oil.’

‘Here,’ said Kavan, producing a small canister. ‘I’ll do it.’ He squeezed a couple of drops onto the mechanism in her chest, and the part that had been scorched by flames resumed its regular motion.

‘You know they will send other craft to destroy that one? They don’t want us finding out their secrets.’

‘You said we had half an hour.’

‘They may come sooner.’

‘Then we’ll run.’

Time passed as the pair of them worked on, the engineers busy nearby.

‘You’ll be okay, I think,’ said Kavan finally, looking at the streaks the acid had burned into the chest panelling they had carefully slid back into place.

‘I’ll be fine. It’s only metal.’

‘I know that.’

Ada appeared at his side.

‘Kavan, we’re ready to go.’

The other engineers were moving away from the stricken craft, carrying various parts they had salvaged from the machine. Two long cylinders, about half the height of a robot; a metal canister that sloshed with liquid, two thick cables emerging from one end; several smaller pieces of equipment. The engineers held them carefully, reverently. All of the pieces had that overly complicated design of human machinery, too many wires, too many parts.

‘Come on,’ said Kavan. ‘Back beneath the ground.’

‘Too late!’ called Calor, looking up into the distance.

Kavan followed her gaze. He couldn’t see anything yet, but he wasn’t a Scout. ‘Should we run?’ he asked.

As soon as he said it he saw a straight line, ruled across the sky, foreshortening. No noise. It was travelling faster than—

The missile hit the human craft with less noise than he had expected. More of a crack than a bang. Kavan realized that Ada was still standing, watching what was going on.

‘They use depleted uranium for the shell tips. I know that. I think there is a magnesium charge inside, but there is something else there as well, I’m sure. Look how it burns!’

The craft was already glowing white hot, the metal collapsing in on itself. She took a step towards it. Kavan pulled her back by the arm.

‘Look out, Ada!’

Two lines of jumping sand ran towards them. Ada watched them approach, then stepped out of their way, quite unconcerned.

‘They have too little control at that distance,’ she explained. ‘You can tell by the spacing between the bullet impacts.’

‘Ada, you mad
Tok
, get down.’

‘They won’t come closer,’ said Ada. ‘They’ll be worried we’ll bring them down too, just like we did the first craft.’

Kavan got to his feet, wondering at what was happening here. It wasn’t like him to shelter whilst others walked around calmly. Two more lines of bullets tore across the sand, and the blue robots stepped around them once more. Behind Kavan the burning craft was collapsing into a molten pool, fusing the sand around itself. Thin smoke rose into the bright day.

‘What did you find?’ asked Kavan. The bullets were curving around again, coming back towards them, then suddenly, they just stopped.

‘It’s hard to say,’ said Ada. ‘The mechanisms make sense, up to a point, but there are parts missing, or parts that shouldn’t function as they do. I’m certain it’s all down to this.’

She held out a flat square object. Fine gold wires were arranged in patterns around the side.

‘I think it’s the human equivalent of a mind. A metal mind, I mean, a robot mind. It’s made of stone and metal.’

‘It’s like a mirror on the top.’

‘If you look at it under a lens you can see incredibly complicated patterns there. Finer than a woman could weave, more complex than a man could make.’

Kavan turned the object this way and that.

‘We can copy most parts of the human craft, but without a suitable mind, I don’t think we can make it fly.’

Calor had little interest for the alien machinery. She was built to run and fight and look into the distance. She was doing so now.

‘Kavan,’ she said. ‘Something’s coming.’

Kavan saw it too. A dark craft with wide wings, two large engines mounted at the tail. It moved slowly but deliberately, flying low over the surface of the plain.

‘What do we do?’ asked Calor.

‘I’d like to try something,’ said Ada. ‘Would you mind?’

Kavan looked on as two of the engineers stepped forward. Things were changing so quickly. For years he had barely paid the blue robots any attention. The engineers had always arrived after the main attack. But now, with the arrival of the humans, they were taking on a new role, stepping forward and taking the lead whilst he and his robots stood and watched. Just like now. Two of the engineers were handling one of the cylinders they had retrieved from the stricken craft, pointing it towards the approaching aeroplane. Kavan could see the animal in the clear glass cockpit at the front of the craft, he heard the whistling of the two engines, saw the dark holes of the guns as the front of the craft turned to face him, heard the rippling smack and crack as bullets stitched a line towards him.

‘Ada, are you sure about this . . .’

Then there was a snap, a flare, and a whoosh of flame. A missile crowning a line of light, it travelled from the cylinder the two robots were aiming and connected with the craft just below the cockpit. The glass bubble filled with orange-yellow flame; there was an explosion all along the fuselage. The wings of the craft folded down and the whole thing fell to the ground, skidding towards them.