Blood and Iron (39 page)

Captain Littler stepped forward.

‘And that’s why, Honoured Commander, it is of the utmost importance that the guns are set up in the Copper Master’s house!’

‘Then set them up,’ said La-Ver-Di-Arussah.

Wa-Ka-Mo-Do drew his sword.

‘You undermine my authority for the last time, La-Ver-Di-Arussah. I challenge you to a duel.’

‘What? Here in the middle of preparations for battle?’ She laughed. ‘You are being ridiculous, Wa-Ka-Mo-Do.’

‘Fight, or I will cut you down where you stand.’

Rachael ducked under her father’s arm and ran forward from the group of humans. She paused just short of where Wa-Ka-Mo-Do stood, his sword gleaming sharp, La-Ver-Di-Arussah looking up at him, taunting him.

‘Stop this!’ she called. ‘This is so stupid!’

‘Stand back, Rachael,’ said Wa-Ka-Mo-Do, voice low.

‘Rachael, get back here!’

The young woman rounded on her father, face red.

‘You’re going to get them all killed! Don’t you care?’

At a nod from her father, one of the humans dressed in green stepped forward to pull Rachael back.

‘You get a soldier to do your dirty work now?’ she said in tones of disgust. ‘Wa-Ka-Mo-Do,’ she called, turning those blue eyes upon him. ‘Stop her! You’ve got to listen to me!’

Slowly, Wa-Ka-Mo-Do resheathed his sword, and he saw the humans relax a little. Then he held up a hand. He flexed the blades at the ends of his fingers. The green human saw them, looked to Rachael’s father for instructions.

‘Let her speak,’ commanded Wa-Ka-Mo-Do.

‘Would the Emperor be pleased that you threaten his guests?’

‘Be
quiet
, La-Ver-Di-Arussah!’

Rachael’s face had changed colour, became chalk white, and again Wa-Ka-Mo-Do recognized something in common with her. They were both at the edge of something. Wa-Ka-Mo-Do had just crossed a boundary, Rachael was about to.

‘Speak, Rachael,’ said Wa-Ka-Mo-Do. And Rachael took a deep breath and did just that.

‘It’s the people here, Wa-Ka-Mo-Do,’ she began. ‘The people of ——— ———. Don’t you see, that they’re just —— ———.

There are ———— ——— ————.’ She gradually became aware that her words were not being translated, and she pulled the headset from her head and rounded on her father.

‘SSSSSSSWWWW WWSSSWSDSDD,’ she shouted at him. ‘OOO SSSSS SSKKSKKS WWWSSKKS.’

Her father recoiled at her words.

‘You can’t have it,’ he said.

‘SSSKKK SSSKKK WWWWWKKKW.’

‘What they do is nothing to do with us!’

‘WWKKK SSKKKS SSSSSWWWKKK.’

She was winning, Wa-Ka-Mo-Do could tell. He was no expert at human body language, but he could see that Rachael was winning the argument. Her father gave in, pulled the headset from his head and passed it to Rachael. She took it, and when she spoke now, it was with her father’s voice.

‘Don’t you see, Wa-Ka-Mo-Do,’ she said, in deep tones that were at odds with her appearance. ‘We’re not part of one human tribe or Empire, come here to deal with you.’

‘I guessed that.’

‘No! You don’t know how bad it is! They kept this planet a secret for as long as they could, but there are so many different concerns back on Earth, and they’re all rushing here to exploit this place. Dragging whole families along if it’s more convenient that way . . .’

Her father shouted something to her, something not translated.

‘No, father, you never did care about anything except your precious job.’ Her face had changed colour again, it now glowed red.

‘Wa-Ka-Mo-Do, you’re wasting time arguing, you don’t know how bad it is. We’re only the first, but there are more humans coming. Better equipped and better armed! They’ll take this planet from you!’

‘We won’t let them,’ said Wa-Ka-Mo-Do, with a confidence he didn’t feel.

Rachael laughed bitterly.

‘Won’t let them? You haven’t a choice! Look at what happened to Ell!’

And at that her father stepped forward and grabbed the headset from her.

‘That’s enough, Rachael,’ he said, but he said it in Rachael’s voice.

‘What happened in Ell?’ said Wa-Ka-Mo-Do, the blades on his hands extended.

‘That wasn’t us,’ said Rachael’s father. ‘It was —— ——’

He pulled a face, put his own headset back in place. Now he spoke in his own, uncensored voice.

‘It was another organization that attacked Ell. The one that attacks us now. They are bigger and stronger than us.’

‘Good! Then we’ll throw you out of this city and let them deal with you. Perhaps they will leave us in peace.’

‘Don’t be a fool! We’re the best you’ll ever get. We’re half sponsored by the SEAU University, they want us to research your society. All the other organizations are interested in is profit! They will exploit this city just like they exploited Ell. And if you get in their way, as the robots of Ell did, they will destroy you too.’

Wa-Ka-Mo-Do felt as if his lifeforce was draining away. He looked at La-Ver-Di-Arussah struggling to hide her uncertainty.

‘And the Emperor permits this?’ he said in despair.

‘The Emperor does not,’ said Rachael’s father. ‘Not any more. The Emperor lost control of Yukawa months ago! Back when he first made a deal with us. Hah! He thought he was being so clever. He didn’t have a clue. Not a clue.’

Wa-Ka-Mo-Do brought his hands up, blades extended.

‘I should kill you now!’ he said.

Rachael was there, standing between the two of them.

‘Wa-Ka-Mo-Do, no! That’s my father!’

Slowly, Wa-Ka-Mo-Do lowered his hands.

‘What would you do now,
Honoured Commander
?’ taunted La-Ver-Di-Arussah. She had regained her composure.

‘You heard what he said,’ replied Wa-Ka-Mo-Do. ‘The Emperor no longer rules Yukawa.’

‘Human lies. The Emperor will always rule.’

‘Then how do you explain that!’ He pointed to the smashed roof of the Emperor’s palace. La-Ver-Di-Arussah ignored it. She was constructing her own reality. One where she was still an important robot. She ignored anything that didn’t fit in with that world view.

Wa-Ka-Mo-Do turned around.

‘Captain Littler, you may liaise with my staff as to the placement of your guns, however the Copper Master’s house remains under my control. La-Ver-Di-Arussah, you will assist Ka-Lo-Re-Harballah in warning the robots of Sangrel of tonight’s attack. Tell them they may leave the city if they wish, though I cannot guarantee their safety, no matter where they go.’

‘Yes, Honoured Commander,’ said La-Ver-Di-Arussah. ‘And the humans?’

‘After you have followed my orders you will find them quarters in the middle city.’

‘Certainly, Honoured Commander.’

He watched her cross the square. He couldn’t trust her, but if he kept her here he would have to fight her, and he didn’t have time for that. He turned to Rachael, who gazed back, blue eyes looking from a white face. His copper girl.

‘Are you frightened?’ he said.

‘No,’ said Rachael. But she was, he knew it. He was too. He was lost, isolated, cut off from his Emperor, severed from his command, and diverging from the path he had followed since childhood. Then something else occurred to him.

‘Ka,’ he said. ‘What do you know about Ka?’

‘Ka?’ said Rachael. ‘That’s the city on the coast, isn’t it? The one with the whales?’

‘Yes.’ He thought about Jai-Lyn, so similar to this human, if such a thing was possible.

‘Ka,’ said Rachael. ‘They occupy it, the ——. The ones who —— Ell.’

Her headset was censoring her again. It didn’t matter, he had got the gist of the conversation.

Either way, Jai-Lyn was on her own. He had problems enough of his own here in Sangrel.

Susan

The robots of Artemis City strained for a view of the animals, but they were too far away to be properly seen. They were building themselves a compound to the south-west of the city. Susan watched it growing from the windows of the Centre City, following Spoole from room to room. She had seen the construction as a series of separate pictures, each framed and viewed from a slightly different vantage point. In a room of computers, busily calculating figures relayed to them on foil sheets, she had watched as the larger craft had settled on the plain, the smaller craft hovering above it all the while, standing guard. The two ships were so alien, painted in bright, unrobotlike colours, covered in strange symbols, and so, so large. When the sun passed behind it in the evening, the smaller craft cast a shadow across the whole southern part of the city, and Susan saw robots standing in the streets, gazing up and pointing to it.

They had spent a day in an index room, Spoole asking questions, sending green robots scurrying this way and that, bringing back still more sheets of foil on which answers were written, and Susan had watched through the window as yellow machines with huge shovels on the front had dug great trenches into the plain. Other machines set to work erecting the metal skeletons of buildings whilst yet more drove around them, spilling black tar across the plain, making roads and squares for still more machines to run across. The humans seemed to have a machine for everything!

Susan could see the blue-painted shells of the engineers in the distance, watching from the newly constructed iron walls of Artemis City, noting everything they could about the animals’ devices.

Spoole seemed to be getting nowhere.

‘I’m being given the run around,’ he said to Susan, as they rested in a forge one afternoon, Susan idly rubbing a file across her seams. ‘Sandale and the rest don’t dare get rid of me, at least not yet, but they’re not going to help me. Don’t worry though. We’ll find your friend somehow. Here, take some of this.’

He handed Susan some platinum wire that lay bundled on a shelf near the fire. Susan accepted it with bad grace. He didn’t seem to get it. He thought they were both friends now, rather than just two people united in a common cause. She looked at the wire, felt it. It was very pure, as good a quality as anything she would have found back in Turing City. She looked around and realized that everything in this room was superior. The plate iron, the chrome steel alloy, the choice of solders in a range of thicknesses. Truly, in Artemis City, not all robots were quite so equal as they would have you believe.

‘I can’t believe that Sandale and the rest would betray Shull to the humans,’ she said.

‘They claim to still follow Nyro. They have gained more metal than they have lost. The animals have presented the city with iron and gold. There are rumours . . .’ He looked around the room. No one else was present, any robot who entered swiftly withdrew when they saw Spoole there. ‘There are rumours that they have presented Artemis with
aluminium.
’

‘Aluminium?’ said Susan. She felt a tingle of current in her hands. She was a craftsrobot. What would she give in order to feel the mythical element? ‘Still, even if it were true, you sell your principles cheaply. The animals are taking more than they give. You’ve seen that base they are building. Do you think they will be content to stay there when all of Artemis City is on their doorstep? The whole of Shull will be connected to their base by railway lines.’

‘I know that,’ said Spoole complacently. He was too busy twisting a sheet of copper into shape.

Susan looked at the other robot. She hated him. And yet she followed him.

The next day they had walked the corridors of the Main Index, and Susan was sure she saw robots ducking out of their way as they approached. Spoole was right, she decided, they
were
giving him the run around. The clerks were helpful, but only up to a point.

Outside, the animals were at work again, erecting a perimeter of guns around their base. Strange guns, almost like robot women, they moved by themselves in a kind of dance, spinning this way and that as they looked across the wide plain. They reminded Susan of the Turing City Guard, the way they too had danced in the night whilst patrolling the city.

That evening there was a shift in the light, lines of shadows moving across the city, golden and dirty in the setting sun, and Susan saw the second craft, the one that had hung there these past few days, descending slowly to the ground, settling within the perimeter of guns.