Blood and Iron (41 page)

‘Well done, Ada,’ said Kavan, genuinely impressed. ‘Well done, all of you.’

He turned to see one of the engineers lying on the ground, most of the area below the chest burned away. Ada was carefully removing the head and the coil from the body.

‘He’s okay,’ she said, ‘but it means we can carry less.’

‘Never mind. There will be more craft, I’m sure.’

‘Come on,’ said Calor, dancing from foot to foot. ‘We
really
need to get away now.’

‘Sure. But you can carry something, too.’ said Ada.

Kavan was impressed at the way the engineer had assumed command. He didn’t mind. Whatever was best for Artemis.

He wondered if Sandale and the rest of the Generals would see it that way.

Susan

‘This way,’ said Spoole, leading Susan deeper into the Half-fused City. When the Storm Trooper had chased her through here before, the place had been deserted. Now the area was teaming with robots.

‘What’s going on?’ Spoole asked a passing infantryrobot.

‘We’re relaying the railway lines,’ said a soldier. ‘Now that Kavan has gone, the wall is coming down and we’re plugging ourselves back into the continent. Artemis is getting ready to march again.’

‘Kavan is gone? You’re certain of that?’

‘The animals cleared the area, didn’t they?’

‘And you’re happy about that?’ said Susan.

‘There is neither happiness nor unhappiness,’ replied the infantryrobot, ‘there is just Artemis.’

‘They’re laying the lines into the animals’ base,’ said Susan. ‘You could see them putting down the ballast from the Basilica.’

They picked their way through the streets, the yellow flares and lights not quite holding back the darkness of the old buildings, the march and stamp and hurry of the troops not quite dispelling the feeling of stillness around them. In the distance, rising over the other buildings, Susan caught sight of the tops of the two shot towers.

‘Why do they keep this place standing?’ she asked. ‘It seems so out of place, here in the middle of Artemis City. Surely there is no sentimentality for the past in Nyro’s world?’

‘None,’ said Spoole. ‘This is where the unfused and the half-fused work. Robots that live indefinitely. They serve their purpose. But this place shrinks a little every year, as we find new ways to do things. Down here.’

He led her down a narrow side street. Ahead of them was a small building, one storey high, barely big enough to hold a family forge. Its red-brick walls were dark and shiny in the dim light. It had no other features save for a plain steel door and a small smoking chimney. The other buildings around it were taller, they seemed to have edged away from it, their windows gazed distrustfully at their smaller cousin.

‘What is it?’ asked Susan.

‘The database,’ said Spoole. Susan followed him to the door. She noticed how well trodden the cobbled road was; there was a smooth path worn into the round stones, heading for the door ahead.

‘There is frequent talk about shutting this place down, of recycling the metal that lies inside, but they have yet to come up with a better way of storing records.’ Spoole laughed suddenly, a hollow sound in that still place. ‘Who knows, the database may outlast even Artemis City. All that we have been will still be recorded here, even when the rest of the metal of Artemis is spun into shape and carried to the stars by the animals.’

And at that he knocked upon the steel door. There was no handle, Susan noticed.

‘Open up,’ he commanded. ‘It’s Spoole!’

For a moment, Susan wondered if Spoole would be obeyed. What would he do if not, she wondered? The door without a handle was pushed open from inside and Susan looked into a single room, dimly lit by a yellow bulb. A Storm Trooper waited there, body humming with power.

‘Hello, Spoole.’

‘Hello, Geraint.’

Susan followed Spoole inside. She felt trapped in this tiny space, she wanted to be safely outside, under the bright stars that filled the night above.

‘You bring an infantryrobot, Spoole? That’s not allowed.’ He looked at Susan. ‘Wait outside.’

Susan looked coolly back at the Storm Trooper, intimidated though she was by his heavy black body. She could feel his current even from here.

‘I am leader of this city,’ said Spoole. ‘Stand aside.’

‘
A
leader of the city,’ said Geraint, but he stood aside anyway. Behind him a set of iron steps spiralled into the ground.

‘How many people are down there at the moment?’ asked Spoole.

‘Only a couple of filing clerks. Things have been quiet since the animals arrived. Who wants to look to the past, when the future is setting up base right outside the city?’

‘Who indeed?’ said Spoole.

With the tap, tap, tap of metal feet on iron treads, he began to descend the stairs.

‘Haven’t we met before?’ said the Storm Trooper, looming over Susan. ‘You’re a conscript. I can tell. What body did you used to wear?’

Susan had a memory of the making rooms, kneeling before robots like this. Had she made a child with him? The thought filled her with loathing.

‘Aren’t we all Artemisians?’ she replied, following Spoole down the steps, resisting the urge to strike the huge black brute.

The steps spiralled through three turns and deposited Susan in a brick room, about the same size as the one above. There were two facing doorways leading through to similar rooms. An iron pipe led from a small stove up into the ceiling. A robot stood in the middle of the space, eyes glowing a weak grey. Unfused, she realized. Here was a robot whose mother had tied the end of its mind into a knot, making a mind doomed neither to die in forty short years nor to ever properly think or feel.

‘Nettie,’ said Spoole. ‘We’re looking for a robot named Nettie.’

The robot pointed to the right-hand door.

‘If that robot exists, its record will be through that door.’ The robot lowered its head, losing all interest in them.

Spoole was already walking through the right-hand door. Susan followed to find a similar room with two more exits, this time, though, one went down another set of stairs. A second unfused robot waited. It looked up as Spoole approached.

‘We’re looking for a robot named Nettie.’

‘If that robot exists, its record will be down the steps,’ replied the robot, pointing. Spoole was already descending. She followed him, only to see the robot in the next room pointing down once more.

‘How far down does this go?’ she called.

‘I’ve heard fifteen levels,’ said Spoole.

Susan calculated.

‘That’s 32, 768 robots down here. That is if this is a true binary tree we’re traversing. That’s almost as many robots as lived in Turing City!’

‘There are only three hundred and two, I think,’ said Spoole. ‘Each node robot holds several thousand records in their mind.’ He was facing another unfused robot now. ‘I’m looking for a robot named Nettie,’ he said.

‘If that robot exists, it will be through that door.’

They followed the direction that was indicated, and continued their descent beneath the Half-fused City.

Back in Turing City, Susan had been a statistician. She understood that she was walking through a concrete example of what she had previously thought of as an abstract concept. Artemis City had made a binary tree. She imagined a robot walking from the Main Index, carrying foil sheets to this building. She imagined the information it brought being passed down the tree of robots buried beneath the ground, each sending the sheet left or right depending on where it lay in the index. A tree. Susan had seen branching examples of organic life named after this structure.

‘This is bizarre, Spoole. Are you always so literal in this city?’

‘I don’t understand what you mean.’

‘Do you build every abstract idea you come across?’

Spoole still didn’t understand. ‘Everything that Artemis has done ends up here eventually,’ he said.

Down and along they went, traversing the data construct. Robot after robot pointed across or down, and they followed the direction indicated. Every so often they passed a little stove, its chimney leading up to the ceiling, and Susan guessed this was where the robots repaired themselves. And then, something new. Piles of soil in the corners of the room. Stacks of fresh bricks.

‘They build new rooms as the database gets bigger?’ she wondered aloud.

‘It used to be once every few years. Now it’s once every six months. The rate of Artemis’s expansion increases.’

‘We’re coming to the end.’

‘Inevitably. The newest data is stored at the farthest nodes.’

Susan moved deeper into the earth, the piles of bricks became more frequent, until eventually they stood before a robot, its body shiny and freshly made.

‘I’m looking for a robot named Nettie,’ said Spoole.

The robot gazed back with its grey eyes. Susan felt the current build within her muscles. The unfused robot spoke.

‘I know of three robots by that name,’ it said. ‘Scout, Infantry-robot and Making Room.’

‘She worked in the making rooms!’ said Susan eagerly.

‘Making Room,’ said Spoole.

‘Nettie,’ said the robot. ‘Mother Kinsle, Father Jaman. Constructed in—’

‘Hold,’ said Spoole. ‘I don’t want her history. Where is she now?’

‘Assigned to Making Room 14, temporarily seconded to Barrack 245, awaiting transfer to Aleph Base pending its construction by the animals.’

‘What?’ said Susan. ‘They’re sending her to the humans? Why?’

The unfused robot said nothing, just stared forward with those dull grey eyes.

Spoole spoke.

‘State her new assignment.’

‘Nettie is to commence training of batch Aleph of the new mothers of Artemis under the direction of the animals.’

‘What?’ Susan looked at Spoole, eyes burning brightly.

Spoole said nothing. He was gazing at the unfused robot, his eyes glowing brightly.’

‘What, Spoole? What is it?’

‘Sandale! Don’t you see what he’s done? He’s a traitor!’

‘Traitor to Artemis? Good!’

‘Don’t be so stupid! Do you think the animals will still have to deal with Artemis City when they have robots with minds woven to serve them directly? Sandale has betrayed Nyro!’

‘All for a few tons of metal?’ said Susan.

‘This isn’t Nyro’s way,’ said Spoole, his voice crackling with static. ‘This isn’t about Artemis, this isn’t about Kavan, this is about robots keeping themselves in power by any means! This is what happens when robots’ minds are woven to think of leadership above all else!’

He was so angry, Susan could feel the flash of current through his electromuscles, see the way his eyes were glowing.

‘This is wrong!’ he said. ‘I have been distracted, I’ve allowed Sandale and the rest to cloud my thoughts! Sulking down here when I should have been out in the city, alerting the true Artemisians to what was happening!’

He looked around the small room. He looked down at his own body.

‘I should be out there with Kavan, helping him to fight against this heresy, not standing here in this over-styled body, of no use to anyone but myself.’

‘Okay,’ said Susan, frightened by his sudden passion, nervous to be so far underground, trapped in the middle of the city. ‘Let’s get out of here then. Let’s go and find Kavan.’

‘Yes,’ said Spoole. He made to climb the metal steps to the next level, and then paused. Susan heard it too: the sound of more feet on steps, the sound of voices.

‘This way!’ shouted someone. ‘Down this way! Spoole is trapped!’

Kavan

The clock tower in the centre of Stark rose to nearly eight hundred feet. Kavan could see it in the distance, rising over the horizon, and he wondered why Artemis had left it in place when they conquered that state. It served no purpose now. Back when Stark was an independent force, it had spread its influence throughout eastern Shull by ensuring each town and village had its own timepiece. It was a form of control far more subtle than that practised by Artemis City, but just as effective.

Kavan had passed through many villages on his way here, each with their brick clock tower empty and broken or turned to the business of Artemis. No longer did every town click and advance to the radio-synchronized tick of the Stark clocks. But then again, nor did they move to the glory of Nyro and the advancement of the Artemisian State.

Out here towards the eastern coast the land turned to rocky rills wound with rivers of sand and gravel. The Artemisians had laid railway lines that followed the lie of the land. Those railway lines were now subtly altered.

‘The humans have done a lot of work in a very little time,’ said Ada.

‘I don’t think so,’ said Calor. ‘They were here already. The animals were in Shull before they came to Artemis City. I’ve spoken to the other robots from round here.’

‘Spoole and the General must have given them this land as a staging post,’ said Kavan.