Blood and Iron p-2

by Tony Ballantyne

  He gazed down at the mound below.

  ‘Wa-Ka-Mo-Do?’ said Rachael. ‘Wa-Ka-Mo-Do! Speak to me. You still haven’t told me about the mound!’

  ‘The mound? Oh yes, the mound. It was raised at the very end. Just before Sangrel was made a part of the Empire.’ He lowered his voice. ‘It was there that the last of the old race performed its most unspeakable acts.’

  ‘Like what?’ She leaned close, concern etched on her face.

  Wa-Ka-Mo-Do lowered his voice.

  ‘I can’t tell you,’ he said, in grave tones. ‘They were unspeakable.’ And then he laughed, loudly.

  ‘Hey!’ Rachael forgot herself and slapped him on the chest. They both looked at each other in surprise, Rachael sucking at her fingers.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘But don’t tease me like that.’

  ‘I won’t.’

  ‘So what’s in the mound now?’

  ‘No one goes there. It’s the property of the Vestal Virgins.’

  ‘What are the Vestal Virgins?’ asked Rachael, eyes wide. ‘They’re mentioned in Earth stories.’

  ‘Have you heard of Oneill?’

  ‘Yes! He’s the mythical creator who’s supposed to have made the first robots, isn’t he?’

  ‘Sort of. Well, the Vestal Virgins were supposed to have tended the fire of the first forge where Oneill made all the robots. One night, when Oneill was out searching for more iron ore, they took one of the men that Oneill had made that day and they began to twist his wire. You understand what I mean? They were making a new mind.’

  ‘I understand,’ giggled Rachael.

  ‘Good. But Oneill returned and found them and was angry, so he declared that the Vestal Virgins would never twist fresh metal, but rather would only be able to work on minds that had already been made by other women.’

  Rachael was nodding. ‘The Vestal Virgins were keepers of the sacred flame on Earth,’ she said. ‘This translator is a clever piece of kit. It seems to understand stories as well as individual words. But what do you mean, they can only work on minds already made?’

  ‘They twist the metal of other creatures to their own ends. They form the lengthening caterpillars, for example. The Emperors keep them as pets and for sport. In the wild caterpillars have ten segments. The Vestal Virgins twisted them so that they fight. The winning caterpillar takes the segments of the loser. There are pictures of them hanging in the Great Hall.’

  She nodded. ‘I think I’ve seen them. I wondered what they were.’

  ‘It’s not my favourite of the royal sports. The longer a caterpillar, the more power it has to stun the weaker competitors. The Emperor has caterpillars more than a mile in length. They have trouble moving…’

  They weren’t the only ones. Rachael had drained her second glass of champagne. Wa-Ka-Mo-Do saw she was having real trouble standing up straight. She swayed as if her gyros were incorrectly tuned.

  ‘Anyway, enough about caterpillars. You said you were going to tell me a story!

  ‘I said I was going to tell you a story about a story, and I did.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Just now. The story of a story is the story of a robot, or a human, I should say, wanting to hear about cruelty.’

  She shook her head.

  ‘I don’t get it.’

  Wa-Ka-Mo-Do laughed.

  ‘This is a game that is played on young robots. Asking them if they want to hear about cruelty, in order to reveal the fascination with cruelty that’s woven into their own minds. What pure person would wish to hear about such evil?’

  ‘But you told me you were telling me a story! You tricked me!’

  ‘I didn’t trick you, I asked you repeatedly if I should go on, and I warned you each time that the next step held worse cruelties, and yet still you wanted to know more. Humans are like robots: they have a fascination with evil woven into their minds.’

  ‘Humans can’t help the way they are made. Robots must be worse because they chose to put such things into the weave.’

  ‘Minds need a mix of emotions. Or so the women say. This is something that men can never understand.’

  ‘Yeah! You never do understand!’ She swayed as she spoke. She seemed angry and more uncoordinated than ever. Did champagne affect all humans in this manner? Then if so, why drink it?

  ‘I’m sorry, Rachael, I didn’t mean to offend. The point of the story is to show that cruelty is everywhere, and it’s in you. Weren’t you aware of this?’

  ‘Weren’t you aware of this?’ she mimicked. ‘Look at you, so smug. Think you know everything. And yet, you’re the ones who don’t realize

  …’

  ‘What?’

  She raised herself up. ‘You don’t realize, do you?’

  ‘Realize what?’

  ‘The way you make yourselves. Like humans. Two arms and two legs and five fingers. You have a head and two eyes. You even have mouths to smile with. You’re just like us!’

  ‘Or you could say that you are like robots,’ replied Wa-Ka-Mo-Do.

  ‘Don’t try and be clever. You’re not thinking. Why do you need mouths, anyway? Why not just communicate by radio?’

  ‘There’s all the different frequencies, and the trouble with metal and-’

  ‘No, you’re not listening to me, are you? I stand here in front of you, breathing the air of an alien planet unaided and you don’t think that’s strange?’

  ‘Should I?’

  ‘Of course! Look at me. What about -- and --’.

  There they were again, those strange discontinuities. She was speaking, he could hear it, but the device that she wore wasn’t translating her words.

  ‘Rachael, I really don’t understand.’

  ‘Look!’ she said, and she pointed up into the sky. ‘Look at that!’

  He looked up. Zuse, the night moon was there, a perfect metal sphere, reflecting the sunlight down upon the world.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ he said. ‘That’s just Zuse.’

  ‘Just Zuse?’ she mimicked. ‘It’s a metal moon! And none of you think there’s anything wrong with that?’

  ‘Well there isn’t,’ said Wa-Ka-Mo-Do, puzzled. ‘Why should there be?’

  ‘You don’t even know what we’re doing here, do you? About -- the…

  ‘Rachael!’

  The words came from behind Wa-Ka-Mo-Do. He turned to see a human male hurrying up. In the light cast from the Great Hall, he had the same copper colouring as Rachael. Was this her father?

  ‘Rachael! Why are you shouting? Have you been drinking?’

  The man looked from Rachael to Wa-Ka-Mo-Do, and something about his gaze caused the robot to rise on his toes a little and prepare a fighting stance.

  ‘Did you give her champagne? Don’t you know that she’s too young?’

  ‘Honoured guest, if I have made a mistake I apologize…’

  But the human had an arm around Rachael’s shoulder and was already leading her away from the terrace.

  Ka-Lo-Re-Harballah appeared at Wa-Ka-Mo-Do’s side.

  ‘Are young humans not supposed to drink, then?’ asked Wa-Ka-Mo-Do, genuinely puzzled.

  Karel

  Karel turned up the brightness of his eyes. Just inside the mine entrance was a wide chamber, the only illumination the glow from the small forge in the centre of the room. The air was filled with smoke, and through the haze he made out the shapes of three other robots. Peering closer, he found them to be in a poorer state than Gail and Fleet.

  ‘Don’t be like that,’ said Gail, noticing his reaction. ‘Or are you afraid of us? Come on, what could we do to harm you? Look at us! Too weak, too far gone. Here, let’s drag your friend to the fire.’

  They dragged Melt closer, and Karel took a look at the forge. There was a bucket of coal next to it; he weighed a piece in his hand.

  ‘This is good quality,’ he said. ‘Where do you get it from?’ No one answered.

  ‘What happened to him?’ asked a very thin robot, half crawling, half dra
gging herself up to Melt’s great cast-iron body. She ran a hand over Melt’s chest, feeling the metal there.

  ‘He won’t say,’ said Karel. ‘He seems to have been permanently joined to that body somehow.’

  ‘Levine will be able to help you,’ said Gail. ‘Would you like metal?’ She brought forward two strips of iron. ‘We have some oil, too.’ Fleet came up, carrying brass and tin.

  Karel gazed at the iron that Gail held. Like the coal it was of good quality. He turned his gaze to her rusted body.

  ‘There is more to life than metal,’ said Gail, answering his unspoken question. ‘Come, take this. Perhaps it will help your friend.’ She pushed the metal towards him. Five pairs of eyes gazed through the smoke at Karel, and he felt a growing sense of unease.

  ‘We don’t need metal,’ repeated Gail. ‘We repaired ourselves not that long ago. Come, use this metal on yourself. Look here…’

  She crossed the room to another robot lying on the floor, arms and legs so bent as to be useless. Her steel plate was punctured by crumbling circles of rust.

  ‘Look at her chest,’ she said. ‘Look at her electromuscle, how kinked it is. She’s draining her own lifeforce away.’

  ‘And yet she’s happy,’ said Levine, and the woman who lay on the floor increased the glow of her eyes by way of confirmation. ‘She understands the truth: that metal is not the sum total of a robot’s life. Look at your friend. He understands the trouble that metal can bring.’

  They all looked at Melt, who was stirring feebly on the floor, trying to sit up.

  ‘Relax,’ said Gail. ‘Lie back and let the fire dry you. Let Levine take away some of the metal that troubles you.’

  Levine was still running her hands over Melt’s body, feeling the metal there.

  ‘I can do something for him,’ she said.

  ‘Levine is a great craftsrobot,’ said Gail. ‘She was a princess in one of the mountain states, born to a body of steel and silver and gold. She walked here dressed in the finest metals, bent into patterns that you would marvel to see.’

  ‘I realized that such things are nothing but vanity,’ said Levine, and she ran her hand over Melt’s body, peeling away the finest shavings of iron. Karel was impressed. His wife had been a great shaper of metal, too. The skill that Levine evinced showed her to be at least her equal. And this was in that poorly constructed body.

  ‘Is this something to do with the Book of Robots?’ asked Karel, suddenly.

  ‘The Book of Robots?’ asked Levine. ‘No? What is that?’

  ‘The Book of Robots is a fallacy,’ said Gail.

  ‘Then you’ve heard of it?’

  ‘I read it once, or at least part of it.’

  ‘You read it? When? Where?’

  Gail smiled and shook her head.

  ‘It doesn’t matter, Karel. Don’t you see, that such things are not of interest? The Book of Robots simply shows another way of twisting metal, and metal does not concern us here.’

  Levine continued to scrape thin flakes of iron from Melt’s body. It didn’t seem to be hurting him.

  ‘I’ve travelled in the north,’ said Karel. ‘I heard many robots talk of the Book of Robots. I never met anyone who actually read it.’

  ‘Karel,’ smiled Gail. ‘It doesn’t matter. Let’s not speak of it.’

  ‘But I want to,’ said Karel. He felt uncertain and uneasy, and when Karel felt like that his anger kindled. His mother had woven that into his mind.

  ‘Who are you all?’

  ‘I’m Gail, I come from the north. Fleet walked the Northern Road. Levine and Carm came from the mountain states, and Vale came from sea. We help travellers who come into difficulty on the Northern Road.’

  Fleet bent and collected together the scraps of metal from the floor that Levine had scraped from Melt; he rolled them together into a ball.

  ‘Why don’t you take that metal and use it to repair your voicebox?’ asked Karel in frustration. Fleet just shrugged and handed Karel the metal.

  Karel still felt uneasy, but his anger was slowly passing. These people were different, but there seemed to be no harm in them. And Levine definitely seemed to be doing Melt some good.

  ‘There’s lead inside him,’ she said. ‘Why would anyone fill a robot with lead?’

  ‘Can you remove it without hurting him?’ asked Karel.

  ‘Not all of it,’ said Levine. ‘But I’ll do what I can.’

  ‘Are you sure you don’t want any metal?’ asked Gail, pushing the strips of iron towards him once more.

  ‘I’m fine,’ said Karel.

  Time passed to the slow scraping of metal. There was something strangely satisfying about this place, a sense that things no longer mattered. All the pain, all the exertion: wouldn’t it be easier just to sit back and let the world pass by?

  It was with some surprise that Karel looked out of the mine entrance and noticed that night had fallen. Fleet had gone, he realized. But when? And where to? He realized then just how sluggish his thoughts had become.

  There was a hum of current and suddenly Melt sat up. He looked around at the circle of swarf in which he sat.

  ‘I feel so much better,’ he said. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘I could do so much more, if you gave me the time.’

  ‘I’m sorry, we have to move on.’ Melt flexed his arms and shoulders.

  ‘We understand.’

  ‘I want to thank you for your help,’ said Melt. ‘If there is anything we can do for you?’

  Through the smoke that filled the chamber, Karel saw how Gail and the rest of the robots smiled at that.

  ‘You could accept a gift from us,’ said Gail. ‘Would you do that?’

  ‘We would be delighted,’ said Melt, not seeming to notice the look that Karel directed towards him.

  ‘Then, please, take these, as a token of our respect for you.’

  Gail held out both hands. A scrap of silver wire lay on each palm.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Melt, reaching out to take one. Karel pushed the leaden robot’s hand away. He leaned forward suspiciously, to get a better look at the gifts. Two pieces of metal, two scraps of silver wire.

  ‘What’s the matter, Karel?’ said Melt. ‘It’s only metal…’

  Karel peered closer. It was only metal. So what was wrong? And then he saw it. They were moving.

  ‘No!’ shouted Karel, slapping Gail’s hands away. The two twists of metal flew somewhere in the room.

  ‘Oh Karel,’ said Gail, in such disappointed tones that Karel felt ashamed of himself. ‘It was a gift!’

  Melt lurched to his feet, heavy body at the ready to fight.

  ‘What is it, Karel?’

  ‘Worms!’ said Karel. ‘No wonder they care so little about metal!’

  ‘Worms?’ said Melt, confused.

  ‘A story from the Northern Lands. Worms that creep into your head whilst you are sleeping, they twist themselves into the metal of your mind. They work on your thoughts, twisting the wire in your head into copies of themselves.’

  ‘They bring peace and happiness and understanding,’ said Gail. ‘How can you condemn what you haven’t tried?’

  ‘And you did say you would accept our gift,’ reminded Levine, the former princess. She had retrieved the two twists of silver from where they had fallen. Now she held them out on one thin, bent palm. Karel saw them wriggling, sensing the lifeforce in his mind, turning their little blunt upper ends in his direction.

  ‘We’re leaving now,’ said Karel turning to go. Something was blocking the mine entrance. Fleet. There were four other robots with him. These robots were nowhere near as badly rusted as Gail and the rest. Two of them wore the bodies of Artmesian infantry.

  ‘All the robots who take the worms return here in the end,’ said Gail. ‘They come back to the spawning ground.’

  ‘Try it,’ said Levine. ‘You promised.’

  Melt swung a heavy cast iron arm and smashed her hands away.

  ‘Stop that!’ shouted one of
the infantryrobots by the door.

  ‘Peace,’ said Gail. ‘Metal doesn’t matter, Kerban. You will see that in time.’

  Kerban? That was an Artemisian name! To think that an Artemisian would come to believe that metal was not important! They had to go, now.

  ‘Let us past,’ he said.

  Fleet moved to push him back into the chamber. The two infantryrobots stepped forward to help.

  ‘Hold them down,’ said Gail. ‘Once the worms enter their minds we will let them go as they please. They will return here in the end.’

  The two infantryrobots seized Karel’s arms. He tried to tug them free.

  ‘Easy,’ said one of them.

  Karel kicked down, dented a robot’s shin. It didn’t care.

  ‘Melt!’ he said. ‘Run!’

  Run? The word was ridiculous. Even scraped of metal as he was, Melt could barely walk. He knew it. Gail knew it. She hadn’t even bothered to try and restrain the heavy robot.

  ‘Let him go,’ said Melt.

  ‘Melt, don’t be stupid! Get away!’

  ‘Are you suggesting I have so little honour?’ said Melt. ‘I used to be a soldier.’ And he reached into the fire with both hands and pulled out two burning coals. The robots in the chamber watched, frozen, as he pushed them into the neck of one of the infantry-robots, screwing them back and forth, squeezing hot coal past the panelling. The robot let out an electronic squeal and Karel pulled his arm free of its grasp. Now Melt clasped his hands together and brought them down as hard as he could on the head of the other robot, badly denting the metal skull.

  The other robots moved forward. Melt took hold of one of them and pulled backwards, using his considerable weight against it. He swung the robot around and slammed it into the others with a ringing crash.

  ‘Now we run,’ said Melt.

  Out of the cave, into the darkness, sliding down the rain-soaked grass.

  Karel and Melt tumbled down the slope, rolling back towards the town, scraping on stones, slipping on the turf.

  They reached the bottom in a tangled clash of metal. With some difficulty, they got to their feet, bodies badly dented.