Blood and Iron (8 page)

‘I don’t know,’ said Nettie. Shyly, she reached out a hand and sent a soothing wave of current into Susan’s own.

‘Why are they doing it? They’ve conquered the entire continent. What else could they want?’

Nettie looked around. They were two tiny figures dwarfed by the sky and the city behind them, the silver shapes of trains moving across the horizon. Even so, Nettie lowered her voice.

‘Susan, there are rumours. Rumours about the Book of Robots. Have you heard them?’

Susan looked at Nettie.

‘Nettie, I’ve heard nothing. The other women don’t speak to me, the only friend I have in here is you.’

Nettie looked around again.

‘I speak to the other supervisors. There is another who knows of the book. She speaks to me sometimes.’

Nettie leaned closer.

‘They have come, Susan. The writers of the book! The creators of the first robots!’

Susan didn’t know what to feel. She didn’t have belief of the book woven into her mind like some other robots did. Her mother had believed, she had woven Susan to be nothing more than a companion for Karel, her husband. Karel was important in some way, she understood that. His mind was different. Beyond that, she really did not care about the book. If only the others who had spoken to her about it understood that. Nettie was gazing at her, excited.

‘Well?’ she said. ‘Don’t you see what that means? They have come to free us! Surely they won’t allow Artemis to continue as it is?’

‘Why not?’ asked Susan. ‘Maybe Artemis is what they want. How do we know what the creators want?’
If they really exist,
she added to herself.

Nettie looked troubled for a moment. Susan pressed home her point.

‘And how do we know they
are
the creators, Nettie? What are they like?’

At that Nettie looked even more troubled.

‘Oh Susan. I don’t know. There are so many rumours. Messages become garbled and twisted—’

‘What have you heard, Nettie?’

Nettie looked around once more.

‘Animals, Susan. They are animals! They walk like robots, they have two arms and legs and a head, but they are animals! It surely can’t be true!’

‘Animals?’ said Susan, disbelievingly.

‘Yes, they say they . . .’

Her voice trailed off. Three people were approaching, walking towards them across the bare field of the radio masts. A computer, a young man in a body painted green. He was flanked by two Storm Troopers.

‘Good afternoon ladies,’ he said. ‘What are you doing here?’

There was something unsettling about the two Storm Troopers. Susan knew she shouldn’t feel intimidated by them, but she felt as if she were back in Turing City, coming face to face with the invading forces. Yet what could they do to her? The worst had already happened.

Nettie spoke up.

‘We’re mothers of Artemis,’ she said, primly. ‘We need to walk the city in order that we do our job properly at night.’

One of the Storm Troopers laughed.

‘You keep walking,’ he said, staring at Susan. ‘You could twist my wire any day.’

‘Shut up,’ said the other Storm Trooper to his companion. He turned to Nettie. ‘Why do you need to be here?’

‘I like to watch the patterns of the signals,’ replied Nettie, truthfully.

‘Not any more. This area is off limits. General Sandale’s orders.’

‘But why?’ said Nettie. ‘We’re doing no harm.’

‘That’s irrelevant. Come back here and I will have you both recycled, mothers or not. Do you understand?’

‘Yes,’ said Susan.

‘I’ll escort them back,’ said the young man in the pale green body. ‘I need to report to the Centre City.’

‘You do that.’

Susan could feel the two Storm Troopers eyes on her as she and Nettie followed the green robot back into the city.

‘Rusting Storm Troopers,’ said Nettie. ‘I hate them. Those big bodies, and yet their wire is so thin and insipid.’

Susan said nothing in reply. What would Nettie know about twisting wire? And yet she was right. They may have big bodies, but there was something about those Storm Troopers that was strangely weak and ineffectual compared to her husband’s thoughts . . .

Too late. The image was there now. Karel. Karel in his finely built body, painted by Susan herself. Karel with Axel, both of them telling stories together. Both of them now gone . . . A soft electronic whine erupted from her voicebox.

She stilled it.

Karel

Karel’s anger was like a diesel engine, constantly churning, belching dirty black smoke that left a trail behind him. Most of the time it was there, running in the background, but then something would rev it up and the air was filled with that rattling purr and his vision was obscured by a black cloud of unreason . . .

For the moment, though, it was under control. Karel worked his way up the valleys and river beds that wound their way back down to the sea. He stuck to cover as he picked his way southwards towards Artemis City. That was where Kavan would be heading, and Kavan was responsible for the death of his child and, in all likelihood, his wife.

This green, windblown land was nearly deserted. Occasionally he would see a soldier in the distance, catch the flash of a Scout as she ran along the hillside, hear a distant shout carried by the wind. At first he had dropped to the ground for cover at any sign of life, more recently he had just continued walking. He was wearing the body of an Artemisian infantryrobot, after all.

But for the most part he was alone. Kavan’s army seemed to be draining from the northern hills, leaving nothing but broken and twisted metal to show for his conquest. The north had been tamed, but at tremendous cost to Kavan himself.

Good
, thought Karel.
Good!

The stream he was following led to a busy river, flushed with the snowmelt that ran from the surrounding hills. Karel looked at the churning waters and tensed the electromuscles in his weak body, gauging whether or not he should cross. The slope on this side was uneven, giving way to rocky walls that sliced down into the water. The far side was flatter, paved in the rough grass that clung wherever it could in these wild lands.

He decided to try it, and managed to wade halfway across before the current caught him and swept him off his feet. He was sucked below the surface and swept back northwards, his body crashing and scraping on the rocks of the river bed. He snatched for handhold after handhold, eventually managing to find a purchase, hands and feet wedged in the rocky bed. He rested for a moment, looking up through the white swirling patterns of water that streamed around him, seeing the pale glow of daylight above. Then, moving carefully on all fours, he picked his way to the opposite bank and began to climb free of the water.

As he did so, someone grabbed hold of his arm and pulled him clear.

Karel sat for a while on the bank, letting the water drain from his battered body. His electromuscles were shorting with the moisture, he felt weak and uncoordinated. Everything about this land seemed unnatural, the grass that covered the soil, the twisted organic trees that thrust roots into the cracks in the grey rocks, tearing out stones that tumbled into the cold water. And so much water! More than a robot needed.

Still, he had a more pressing concern.

‘Who are you?’ he asked the tall robot who stood silently looking down at him.

‘Banjo Macrodocious.’

‘I should have known.’

Karel had met the robot, or more likely, one of his brothers, before. Banjo Macrodocious. They all had the same name, they were all unnaturally strong. And, despite the fact they were obviously intelligent, they had no sense of self.

‘You shouldn’t stay here,’ Karel warned. ‘Kavan has his troops out hunting for you. He knows that you escaped from the Northern Kingdom before it fell and he wants you all destroyed. Kavan doesn’t believe in the Book of Robots, he thinks it’s nothing more than sedition.’

‘It’s no matter,’ replied Banjo Macrodocious.

‘Why not? I thought the book was important to you! Don’t you carry it in your mind? I thought you all did!’

Banjo Macrodocious was unconcerned.

‘We do. But Kavan and his troops are currently no threat to us, if it can be said that Kavan still commands any troops. The soldiers that once filled our land are marching south. Artemis is undergoing a time of change. Spoole and Kavan and the rest will fight to determine who leads Artemis and what its future direction will be.’

There was an iron-grey lid on this strange land. Karel stared at the dull sky, trying to remember another world, one filled with metal and stone and singing with the current of life.

‘Who leads Artemis has nothing to do with me,’ said Karel.

‘It does. Your wife is in Artemis City.’

Karel felt as if he had been struck by a hammer. For a moment, his head seemed to ring like a bell. Susan was still alive. Happiness and fear mingled within him.

‘Is she okay?’ he asked, his voice almost crackling with joy. Banjo Macrodocious didn’t seem to notice.

‘She is healthy. She works in the making rooms, twisting new minds.’

Now Karel felt his gyros lurch.

‘They’re . . . raping her,’ he said.

‘Every night.’

He struggled unsteadily to his feet, water still dripping down the grey metal panelling of his body. Mud covered his fingertips.

‘I’ve got to go,’ he said, wiping his hands on the grass. ‘I need to save her.’

‘Not now. Not like that.’

Weak as he was, Karel bunched his fists, squeezing more water from them as he did so. ‘Who are you to tell me what to do?’ he asked, anger surging within him.

Banjo Macrodocious moved forward, blocking his way. He was a big robot, humming with power. Karel was well aware that, even were he not in his current, weakened state, the other robot would have no trouble subduing him. Karel lowered his hands, dampened the anger that was telling him to push the big robot out of the way.

‘Why won’t you let me go?’ he asked.

‘I’ve come to take you to someone who may help you. His name is Morphobia Alligator.’

‘Morphobia Alligator? Who is he?’

‘He’s a pilgrim. He has been looking for you.’

Wa-Ka-Mo-Do

Jai-Lyn was young and sheltered, she had never been outside the Silent City before. Now she was torn between the view from the window of the train and the company of Wa-Ka-Mo-Do.

‘Is it really true that you have travelled all the way from the High Spires to the Silent City, Warrior?’ she asked in awe.

‘Much of the journey takes place on metalled roads, Jai-Lyn, and through the lands of the Emperor. There are few of the robbers and the other dangers of the old tales.’

‘You say few of the robbers! Did you meet any?’ ‘Some. When they realized who I was they did not attack.’ ‘I suppose you made them hand their ill-gotten gains back to the peasants. Am I not right, oh my master?’

‘It is true that the peasants benefitted from my passage.’ The robbers he had met were poorer than the peasants upon which they preyed, reflected Wa-Ka-Mo-Do. He had dispatched the unfortunates with a blow of his sword, cutting cleanly through the metal of their minds, then he had dragged the metal of their bodies to the closest forge, where it was recycled to the benefit of the people, and through them, their Emperor.

‘And what about monsters? Did you meet the Nightwalker?’ ‘There are few monsters in the Empire, Jai-Lyn,’ he laughed. ‘But I saw many marvels. The metal forests of La Wen, where acid is poured into the ground and left to evaporate, and the metal that is washed from the salts blooms as trees under the soil, to be excavated by farmers over the centuries. I saw the great animal farms of Mel-Ka, where the organic cattle roam over grassland and come to slaughter when called. I crossed the four rivers of Fla. I fought there, it’s true, cutting myself free of the squid that reach for metal from the water—’

‘Surely you are the best of all warriors!’

Wa-Ka-Mo-Do smiled at the way Jai-Lyn’s eyes glowed as he spoke.

‘The Imperial Guard would think otherwise.’

Jai-Lyn reminded Wa-Ka-Mo-Do of his younger sister, La-Cor. Bright and skilled in the working of metal. His sister had built a body that caused Wa-Ka-Mo-Do to walk with one hand near his sword when the young men came calling; her conversation had the same eager questioning, always seeking out new knowledge and experience. So similar. At one point Wa-Ka-Mo-Do had traced the symbol of the Book of Robots: a small circle on the circumference of a larger one, but Jai-Lyn did not seem to notice.

Wa-Ka-Mo-Do realized he had been careless in almost revealing himself like that, but she was so like La-Cor . . .

Sweetest of all was the way that both of them seemed to regard Wa-Ka-Mo-Do as the most skilled of warriors. Jai-Lyn would not be dissuaded from this point of view, and she spoke most prettily in his favour.

‘But, oh my master, it is true that the Imperial Guard have the best metal, the best training. Who can deny that? Surely it would be treason to suggest that the Emperor would do otherwise than ensure the best of all is made available for his own soldiers. Without doubt, their bodies are shaped from the purest iron and aluminium by the most expert craftsrobots!’