‘But that’s ridiculous—’
‘The Book of Robots is said to contain the plan for the original robot. It lays out the reason for our construction, the laws that we are meant to follow, the ultimate reason for our existence.’
Susan had fumbled a twist in the wire. She glanced around the room, checking that her slip had not been noticed. No one even looked; each lost in contemplation of the making of a mind. Around the room, the men leaned close to whisper in the ears of the women dutifully weaving wire in Nyro’s pattern.
‘I don’t believe it,’ whispered Susan. ‘That’s . . . wrong!’
‘How can it be wrong if it’s the truth, Susan? Just think about it, what if we were made to some purpose?’
‘It’s wrong!’ repeated Susan, her voice cold and low. ‘Every mother has the right to weave the mind that she chooses!’
‘You say that as you kneel there weaving a mind to Artemis’s pattern? Think on this, Susan, what if Artemis is right? Suppose Nyro’s philosophy is proving so successful because it is in fact our true purpose?’
‘No! I don’t believe that! I would rather not have lived than for that to be true!’
‘Interesting,’ said Banjo Macrodocious.
Susan wove in silence for a few minutes, while Banjo Macrodocious said nothing. He leaned back, his eyes dimming. Susan’s anger rose. She jerked on the wire.
‘Who are you? Why are you telling me all this?’
Banjo Macrodocious looked around the room before leaning close to her ear.
‘Keep your voice down! Do you want the others to hear?’
‘I don’t care!’
‘I don’t believe that, Susan. You’ve already had plenty of chances to speak out since your capture. The fact that you are here twisting metal suggests that you chose not to die.’
The robot’s words struck home, and Susan was silent for a moment, hands twisting away.
‘What do you want me to do?’ she asked.
‘For the moment, nothing. We just want you to know that we’re here. That you are not alone.’
‘But why me? Why speak to me?’
‘Because you are one of us.’
Banjo Macrodocious drew the sign in the air, the circle with the dot on the top.
‘The robots at the top of the world,’ he said. ‘There is a land at the top of this world: north of Shull, beyond the Moonshadow sea. The Book of Robots was said to be written in that land, and then brought to Shull by the roads that run beneath the sea. Brought past the house of the glass robots around which the whales swim . . .’
‘What are you talking about?’ said Susan. ‘Ghost stories of the north!’
‘Have you ever noticed how all the ghost stories are set in the north, Susan? And now Kavan has passed the mountains, now that he has begun conquering the states there, what do you suppose he will find?’
‘I don’t know. What does that have to do with me?’
‘Your husband travels north, with Kavan.’
‘Then he is all right?’ For the moment, Susan was filled with a fierce joy, the first time she had felt an emotion so strong since she had been brought here. But it quickly faded.
‘But what can I do, trapped here?’
‘For the moment, Susan, nothing. You must await your time.’
And at that Banjo Macrodocious fell silent. Nothing else that Susan said elicited a reply.
She returned to weaving the mind of her first Artemisian child.
Karel
Karel felt so strong. When he flexed the electromuscles in his legs, diesel engines roared and propelled him forwards. When he squeezed his fingers he felt the heat as he gripped the locomotive’s wheels. Even when he coasted, as he did now, following the curve of a mountain down into a wide valley, he felt the sheer mass of his body as it rolled smoothly along.
The northern scenery was awe-inspiring, terrifying and beautiful. Up here, organic life had not been eliminated to the same extent as in the south, so the low hills that rolled up towards the mountain peaks were green with grass. This land contrasted the organic smoothness of such hills with the sharp edges of mountain peaks that speared the sky: it was an unnatural, but strangely attractive, sight.
Karel only wished he could move his eyes. The track along which he ran skirted the edge of a reservoir, the wind blowing the rain in bands across its level surface. There were cylindrical buildings of smooth stone at the far end of the lake. Extremely well constructed, too: the robots who inhabited this state were expert stonemasons, no doubt compensating for the relative scarcity of metal. Karel wished he could turn his eyes to get to see it all properly. Up here there were castles on the mountain peaks, half seen as he wended his way through the northern lands carrying supplies and troops. He wanted to get a better look. The castles were rooted in sheer cliffs, their walls rising up to towers that sought the sun in the same manner as the strange plants that were allowed to grow here. Looping metal roads ran from their fortified entrances down along the valley walls. Karel felt he was travelling in the land of childhood myths and stories, carrying troops north and then bringing captured metal south, as plate, as pipes and as bundles of blue wire.
He felt as if he were being seduced by it all. His anger was there still, sharp and unpredictable as it had ever been, but Karel was gradually training it to burn slower and longer, just to keep alive the feeling of dull anger that reminded him of the great wrong that had been done to him. And yet, he was coming to understand the dark appeal of Nyro’s philosophy, of being a part of this powerful, all-consuming engine that was spreading across the surface of Penrose. To have no doubts. Most of all to be so strong. He could feel the pulse of the diesel, the incredible weight of the load that he was pulling.
Even so, there remained a sense of foreboding.
Day by day, the blanket of cloud that spread southwards over the sky had thickened and darkened, from pale to dark grey, to almost black. The cold rain fell constantly, sometimes in thin drizzle, increasingly often in heavy sheets that were transported up by the never-dying wind that blew from the north.
Karel was strong, and yet he had no control over the path he followed.
He wondered where it was taking him.
Kavan
There was a stone throne set in the very centre of the room, facing out over the mountains and valleys which this little kingdom had once ruled. One could sit there in this castle eyrie and gaze through the empty frame of the window with a sense of absolute power.
Kavan had seated himself on a little stool just by the window ledge, the foil sheets that surrounded him fluttering around the lumps of lead which weighed them down.
The conquest of Northern Shull proceeded apace. They had blasted through the major mountain range with little incident, and into the country beyond. It seemed that the summit of every hill and mountain here boasted its own castle, and every castle boasted its own king or queen ruling the land immediately around it. Kavan had picked off these kingdoms one by one without any trouble. Self-important little rulers who ruled over their pathetic lodes of iron. Life was too easy for them while they stayed put, squandering their resources on petty squabbles or on building ever more baroque displays of architecture to flaunt their wealth.
Kavan looked out over the view from castle Ironfist, smiling at the name. Queen Ironfist herself had surrendered without a fight then had willingly boarded the train taking her to the making rooms of Artemis City.
Down below he could see the grey bodies of his troops laying railways that would follow the curves of the iron-grey reservoirs, busily linking these lands to each other and ultimately to Artemis City. And then the rain rolled in again, a hissing sheet that quickly travelled the length of the valley. Brooding clouds enfolded the mountain tops, leaving him in grey isolation in his chosen eyrie. The cold wind fluttered through his sheets of foil, and he realized that it was time to move further back inside again.
‘Help me with these, Wolfgang.’
Wolfgang took hold
of the other end of the little table and helped him to manoeuvre it through an archway to the space beyond the exposed throne room. This was the kingdom’s parliament chamber, the stone ribs of its vaulted ceiling carved out of the rock of the mountain itself and decorated with silver and a little gold. A great iron slab of a table sat in the centre of the room.
‘Eleanor is here,’ announced Wolfgang.
‘Send her in.’
‘She’s wearing that self-important look,’ warned his aide.
‘Then I’ll have to find something else to keep her busy.’
Eleanor entered the room, her infantryrobot’s body looking more scratched than ever and badly in need of paint. Wolfgang was right, reflected Kavan. She was making a point.
‘Hello, Eleanor. Everything going well, I trust?’
‘So so.’
Wolfgang and Kavan were busy laying out the foil sheets on the iron table. Eleanor twisted her head, trying to read what was written on them.
‘I wonder if this is how Spoole feels,’ said Kavan, reflectively. ‘Only a few weeks ago I was part of the troops attacking Wien. When we took Turing City I may have brought up the rear, but I was part of the fighting there too, after a fashion. Now I do nothing more than sit in this castle and direct operations.’
He waved a hand across the table. ‘These reports are the only sight of the action I get nowadays. Maybe I was wrong to criticize General Fallan as I once did.’
Eleanor sat down in a chair without being invited to.
‘Don’t put words in my mouth, Kavan,’ she said. ‘If I really thought that of you, I’d come out and say it.’
‘And yet you come here with your armour all battered, which is usually a sign that you’re not happy with something. You know as well as I do that a good infantry-robot keeps her body clean and in good repair.’
‘When I get the time, I will. Kavan, I know how hard this is for you. You’re at the pinch of the hourglass. You’ve got Spoole and Artemis to the south feeding you arms and materiel, you’ve got the whole northern continent above you arming up and preparing to defend itself against your attack. Get it wrong and you’ll be crushed between the two of them . . .’
‘Get it right and I’ll conquer all of Shull. What do you want, Eleanor?’
‘Kavan, there’s something odd happening to the north.’
Kavan was genuinely thrown. He had expected Eleanor to come here and to subtly challenge him, as she usually did. He wasn’t expecting this.
‘Odd?’
‘I don’t know how else to describe it. This is a strange land, Kavan. I don’t think that you’ve experienced it quite like the rest of your troops have.’
‘Ah! So I was right about the battered armour!’
Eleanor rapped at the iron table in annoyance.
‘Okay, so maybe I was making a point. But that’s not why I’m here. Kavan, you need to see this land for yourself. This land is really strange: the lack of metal has stunted it. You must have seen the organic life out there, it’s rife. But have you seen how the robot life changes the further north you go? Have you seen the animals? There isn’t enough metal for them to build themselves properly, so they’re . . . strange. All of them small, or elongated, or twisted. All engaged in a constant fight for what little metal there is. Tiny beetles that scratch metal from your body and carry it away. Spiders that use magnetic fields to lure those beetles into their lairs . . .’
‘Should we be afraid of them?’
‘Worms that creep into your skull and twist the metal there into their young,’ continued Eleanor. ‘They say that a robot can walk around not even knowing that these worms are eating away at his mind, gradually robbing him of his thoughts. Other robots try to tell them what has happened, but the worms have eaten that part of the mind that lets him understand this. And so it goes on until the day that robot just dies.’
‘I’ve often heard it said that life can thrive in the most unlikely places,’ replied Kavan. ‘Is this what you have come here to tell me?’
‘No,’ said Eleanor. She hesitated for a moment. ‘Kavan, have you ever heard of the Book of Robots?’
Kavan said nothing.
‘It’s a heresy, I know. But some robots say that . . .’
‘I’ve heard of it,’ interrupted Kavan.
‘Well,’ continued Eleanor. ‘There are stories. Stories of a road that leads north, right across Northern Shull and then out under the sea to the top of the world itself. Some of the Scouts say they think they may have seen part of this road.’
‘So there is a road that leads north. Is that such a surprise?’
‘Perhaps not. But there are tales also of another kingdom, far to the north of here, further than any of our troops have so far travelled. A kingdom lying almost on the northern coast of Shull itself. A place where there is so little metal that the robots there use organic life as part of their bodies.’
‘Who says this, Eleanor? Because it sounds like the sort of rumours that we ourselves spread before attacking Wien and Turing City. It’s the sort of rumour that saps the morale of your enemy and makes the fight so much easier.’
Eleanor looked down at the table, embarrassed. ‘I know that, Kavan. I realize that. But we’ve heard these stories from the robots in all of the little kingdoms that we’ve so far conquered. And at first I thought as you did, but as we moved further north these stories became more detailed, more specific. Still we thought nothing of them. And then our own troops began to report strange occurences.’
‘Like what?’
‘Like the story of the voices in the dark.’
Karel and the Voices in the Dark
Karel rode the rain-slicked rails northwards. Lately there had been a touch of snow in the endless rainfall which smeared itself across the rails, making his wheels slip as they struggled for traction.
Night was falling; it had already settled in the steeper valleys and cuttings through which Karel struggled.
He guessed he was currently pulling troops. He had seen them lined up by the side of the track outside Artemis City as he picked his way through the points to the marshalling point. Hundreds of grey-painted infantryrobots, washed shiny by the never-ending rain, all fresh from the city’s forges. More metal twisted by busy hands to continue with the conquest of the continent. For a moment Karel had a vision of Susan being forced to work in the making rooms of Artemis. Was that where she had ended up? he wondered. Better than being dead, maybe. He quickly thrust the thought from his mind. Why torture himself? It was better to concentrate on the day at hand.
Up and up the slope that led along a dark valley, its sides lined by the sodden shapes of organic trees appearing no less strange for being viewed through infrared. He had never been so far north before. The landscape here was different, starker, sharper. Everything was a little poorer and thinner up here: the quality of the light, the stone, the low mountains that had almost descended to the level of the foothills. There was none of the grandeur of the lands through which Karel had first travelled: the terrain up here felt so dead and empty of metal . . .
There was something blocking the tracks ahead!
He gripped the brakes, felt the disks lock in his hands, the wheels slipping on the rain-slicked rails. The weight of the carriages slammed into his back, pushing him forward, unable to stop, pushing him into a fall of rocks that covered the line. He was going to hit them. He was slowing. He was slowing . . . He stopped.
A voice sounded in his ear.
‘What are you playing at?’
When was the last time someone had actually spoken to him? How long had he driven in silence? He didn’t care about the harshness of the voice. It was a pleasure just to be able to speak.
‘Rockfall ahead,’ he explained. ‘It’s covered the tracks.’
The voice could be heard, faintly conferring with someone else.
‘Does it look natural to you?’ it finally asked him.
How should I know? thought Karel. All I can see is
straight ahead.
‘I don’t know,’ said Karel.
‘It could be an ambush . . .’ said the voice thoughtfully.
‘It could be,’ said Karel. ‘I can’t see anything to the sides.’
But there was no reply to that.
‘Hello?’ called Karel. ‘Hello? Are you still there?’
The sound of the voice had reminded him of how lonely he actually was. The feeling of power that he had enjoyed while driving the train now vanished, and he remembered just how cut off he was from other robots; that all he was now was a piece of machinery, just something to make the train go. And then the images came smashing through his defences, overwhelming him. All those pictures that he had blocked. Memories of his old life. Of walking with Susan through the galleries. Of talking to her, talking to other robots. Of conversation and companionship: not this endless isolation.
He tried to push the images from his mind, but to no effect. Still they came crowding back.
The memory of the forge, of the nights spent there, Susan sitting opposite him, painting metal with her clever, skilful hands. Of Susan smoothing the weave of his electromuscle. And worst of all – he tried not to think about it, but he couldn’t stop it – the memory that hurt the most – of Axel, of his little boy, sitting on the floor of the forge, fiddling with two pieces of metal, talking about how he was going to make arms that were so strong, how he was going to build a body that would be so handsome when he was fully grown.
All that would never now be.
And for the first time, unable to help it, Karel began to cry. All that emotion that he had blocked for all these weeks came leaking out. It set up a feedback loop in his voicebox – wherever it was now located on that train – and began to whine.
Somebody must have heard.
‘Stop that,’ a voice ordered, and there was a click as his ears were turned off.
Time passed. No one went to move the rocks ahead, but Karel scarcely noticed. Night deepened, and for the first time in days the rain ceased. White light then spread across the sides of the valley. The clouds had cleared, and the light of Zuse, the night moon, shone down unimpeded.
Twisted Metal Page 24