Blood and Iron (55 page)

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

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

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.’