Blood and Iron Page 6

  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 th
e 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!’

  She lowered her face most delightfully.

  ‘But what of their minds?’ she asked. ‘I am sure they have not your experience, warrior! They would not have stood in the snow of the High Spires and looked north across the Empire! They would not have learned to fight in those cold and sparse lands. Robots who spend their life in the Silent City would not have been tempered by their journey from the south!’

  Wa-Ka-Mo-Do laughed delightedly.

  ‘I am sure, Jai-Lyn, that you will be a huge success in the city of Ka! If you twist a man’s wire as surely as you build his ego, you will produce minds at which robots may wonder!’

  Her eyes glowed brightly.

  ‘I only speak the truth, my master. The robots of the Imperial Guard are not like you! Nor have they been granted such a high command. The city and province of Sangrel!’

  Wa-Ka-Mo-Do smiled back at her, but he felt uneasy. Commander of the forces of Sangrel was indeed a high honour. It was almost unknown for the Emperor to place one of the Eleven in charge, and not for the first time he wondered whether some deeper scheme was at work here. His thoughts wandered to the sudden evacuation of the train back at the station. It was unheard of for the Emperor’s railway to be so disrupted, for such an event implied a lack of planning on behalf of the Emperor: it implied an unseen event, and this was impossible in Yukawa, for did not the Emperor see all?

  It had taken Wa-Ka-Mo-Do a good day to find another train to take him on his way, a task made doubly difficult by his insistence that Jai-Lyn be allowed to accompany him. In all this time he had found no one who could tell him what had happened in Ell. He suspected that this was not due to robots withholding information: genuinely, no one knew. And yet Ell was not so far from Sangrel. Barely a hundred miles . . .

  ‘Look, warrior!’

  Jai-Lyn interrupted his thoughts. She was pointing out of the window.

  ‘Jai-Lyn , perhaps if . . .’ but his words trailed away.

  For most of the morning the train had travelled through the green forests of An-Dara Province, and Jai-Lyn had gazed at long lines of trees, carefully farmed to feed the forges of nearby Ban City. But now they had left the trees behind. They were gliding through the grass plains of northern Sangrel Province.

  A robot could see for miles here, look across plains that fed the thin cattle and sheep, bred by Yukawan robots throughout the centuries to remove as much of the muscle as possible to leave the skin and bone that were so useful to industry. Oily crops flowered in the distance, bright yellow marks against the horizon, punctuated by the glint of sunlight on the metal skins of robots tending the fields.

  But something disturbed the harmony. The earth had been churned up to leave great brown scars in the ground.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Jai-Lyn. ‘What’s happened there?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Wa-Ka-Mo-Do.

  They gazed from the compartment in silence, two robots in a little place of metal and wood looking out on a world seemingly destroyed. The carefully harmony of fields and cattle and trees, cultivated over hundreds of years of Empire, had been ruined. It was like a robot had wiped his hand across a picture on a sheet of metal, erasing it. The brown churned earth seemingly stretched for miles.

  ‘It’s like when a farmer plants crops,’ said Wa-Ka-Mo-Do slowly. ‘Only much, much bigger.’

  ‘I have never seen a farmer plant crops,’ said Jai-Lyn.

  ‘I grew bonsai trees, back in Ekrano,’ answered Wa-Ka-Mo-Do, engrossed by the scene before him. The excavation was so large. What possible use could it be? And then he saw something else.

  ‘Do you see it too?’ asked Jai-Lyn.

  ‘Yes,’ replied Wa-Ka-Mo-Do, staring at the yellow machine that worked its way across the grassy plain in the distance. The machine was so big, and so smooth. So much metal, it seemed to have been poured in one piece. Behind the machine stretched a brown ribbon of churned earth.

  ‘That’s what’s causing those marks,’ said Jai-Lyn. ‘But I have never seen a machine like it. What robot could have built that?’

  ‘I don’t think it’s robot-built,’ answered Wa-Ka-Mo-Do. He caught a movement high up in the sky. He and Jai-Lyn looked up at the silver shape that drew a line of condensation through the heavens.

  ‘I think the animals have done this.’

  Karel

  Karel followed Banjo Macrodocious through the hills. His metal squeaked as he strode after the other robot: it had been too long since he had had time to tend to it, but of his mental turmoil, there was no sign.

  ‘What’s a pilgrim?’ he asked carefully.

  ‘The opposite of my kind. Morphobia Alligator will explain everyth
ing to you.’

  Karel didn’t press the point. If Banjo Macrodocious had been told to say nothing, then he would say nothing. Still, he was distracted by other thoughts. Susan was alive! Somewhere to the south, his wife knelt in Artemis City to twist the wire of other men. He should be heading there right now, yet Banjo Macrodocious was leading him west. He caught glimpses of the Northern Sea to his right as they traversed the rough green hills, cutting across this foreign land of grass and stone. A grey beetle watched him as he walked by, metal shell warming in the sun, then he felt a boiling of electricity at his feet and looked down to see he had kicked an ants’ nest, the little creatures swarmed around his feet, scraping nicks of metal from his soles. He leaped forward, stamping his feet hard.

  Banjo Macrodocious watched him.

  ‘Insects everywhere,’ said Karel. ‘We must be getting near to ore.’ He paused, tasting his surroundings. ‘I can feel it in the ground. Very faint.’

  ‘We are heading towards Presper Boole,’ Banjo Macrodocious volunteered. ‘Its prosperity was built on metal ore and trade.’

  ‘I’ve never heard of it,’ replied Karel.

  ‘That was a long time ago, when many robots still travelled the Northern Road to the paths beneath the sea. There was much trade between Shull and the robots at the Top of the World.’

  ‘You believe in the robots at the Top of the World?’ asked Karel. He smiled. ‘I suppose you do. You believe in the Book of Robots after all.’

  ‘I don’t believe,’ said Banjo Macrodocious. ‘I know it to be true.’

  Of course he did, thought Karel, it was woven into his mind. Banjo Macrodocious really would think that he had part of the plan for the original robots there in his head, he really would believe that he knew a little about how robots should behave.

  And yet, who was he to feel anything but envy? At the moment, Karel was certain of nothing more than the fact he wanted his wife back.

  ‘How much further?’ he asked, as they crested the top of another low hill.

  ‘Nearly there,’ answered Banjo Macrodocious, and they both looked down.

  The land fell into a wide sea inlet fed by a river that flowed from the south, the waters churning against the incoming tide. Across the way Karel saw more land, rocky cliffs and edges dressed in green grass. He felt caught between the elements, exposed to the choices of the world. Which way now? North beneath the vast expanse of the Moonshadow sea, down the river to the south, or follow the coast to where it took him? Then, further down the hillside, he saw the ancient remains of a town. Grey stone buildings, long broken by the elements. All the metal stripped away.