Blood and Iron p-2

by Tony Ballantyne

  ‘No robot lives that long,’ said Susan.

  ‘They do if they’re half-fused,’ said Bouvan, ‘like me and her. This is Half-fused City you’re in. Didn’t you know that?’

  Half-fused. Suddenly it all made sense to Susan. Robots of limited intelligence, but robots that lived longer and were stronger. Robots like the ones Nettie had told her about, the sort of minds that Susan would soon have been twisting, had she stayed in the making rooms.

  ‘Come on, lady. I’ll swap your head with hers.’

  ‘He’ll drop it!’ called Appovan. ‘He dropped a block of half-melted lead once. What a waste! They were looking for bits of metal for weeks afterwards! Weeks!’

  Susan wanted to run back down the steps of the tower, down to the streets below.

  Down to where the Storm Trooper searched for her. That thought brought her up short.

  She looked back at Bouvan, the half-fused robot. She had had the plan for a half-fused mind explained to her, and she understood something: such a robot would be too stupid to lie. In that sense, she could trust it.

  ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Do it. Swap my head with hers.’

  She carefully lay face down on the floor. She felt something touch the back of her head, then her sense of the world vanished, leaving her in darkness and silence. She waited for sensation to return.

  And waited.

  What if it were a trick?

  It was a trick! How could she have been so stupid? To give her mind to a complete stranger, a mad robot who lived on a tower high above the city. Maybe he had dropped her? How would she know? Would there just be sudden oblivion, her thoughts ceasing to exist? Or would her mind be damaged, twisted out of shape? Would she begin to imagine strange places, strange thoughts? Trapped in a twisted world of her own mind?

  Then, just like that, sense returned. She could see darkness again, and a long hand moved and she was gazing at the stars.

  ‘Careful!’ called out a voice. Her own. That was confusing. She hadn’t spoken, she was sure of it.

  She remembered where she was, and she realized who had spoken. That was Vignette, now in her old body. She lay still for a moment, getting the feel of her new body. It was really quite well made, she realized. She moved her hands, felt for the edge of the ledge on which she lay, sat up slowly, and she recognized a fellow craftsrobot’s work This body was made of cheap materials, it was true, but an expert job had been made of the construction.

  She looked across the other side of the circular chimney to see Vignette gazing back.

  ‘You build well,’ said the other robot.

  Susan felt a sudden stab of jealousy. Vignette was wearing her old body, now she had the use of all the good metal that had gone into its making. Now Vignette looked well made and attractive, a true mother. And she, Susan, was just another infantryrobot.

  But this is what she had wanted.

  ‘You build well, too,’ she replied. The two robots exchanged a look of mutual respect.

  Susan got to her feet.

  ‘Are you going?’ asked Bouvan.

  ‘Of course they’re going,’ shouted Appovan from across the way. ‘No one ever stays up here, do they?’

  ‘I used to know other robots,’ said Bouvan. ‘Back when I lived on the ground, but I had to go higher and higher. It’s always been in me to beat Appovan. So they brought me stones and I started to build. Now I live up here, all alone.’

  ‘You’ve got me, haven’t you?’ called Appovan.

  ‘But I don’t like you.’

  ‘And I don’t like you.’

  ‘Please don’t leave me alone,’ said Bouvan.

  ‘Come down with us,’ said Susan.

  ‘I can’t. I have to stay up here. That’s the way my mind was made.’

  Susan hesitated.

  ‘Listen,’ she said. ‘I have to find my friend. I don’t know where she is, but I need to find her. But when I do, I’ll come back here, if I can.’

  She was lying, and she knew it. She couldn’t imagine how she could ever return here. Not with Kavan about to attack the city. Not with her a fugitive, fleeing from the making rooms, but she had to say something.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Bouvan, and he seemed so pathetically grateful that Susan felt ashamed.

  ‘Come on,’ called Vignette, already descending the steps.

  Susan gave a last wave to Bouvan and then followed her. As she went she heard Appovan’s voice.

  ‘She’s never coming back, you old fool. She was lying so she could get away from you.’

  ‘She wasn’t,’ said Bouvan. ‘I did her a favour! She’ll repay it!’

  Susan turned her hearing right down, shame building within her, and followed Vignette down the stairs.

  They reached the bottom of the steps and Vignette made to open the door.

  ‘Hold it!’ called Susan

  Vignette turned back to look at her. Silence. Susan remembered she had turned down her hearing.

  ‘What is it?’ repeated Vignette.

  ‘Don’t forget, there’s a Storm Trooper out there looking for me. He’ll be looking for you, now, given that you’re wearing my body.’

  Vignette looked down at herself.

  ‘So what do we do?’

  ‘Let me go first. Let me do the talking if we meet him.’

  Susan pushed the door open and peered out into the night. There was nothing, just the starlit street, the eerie, empty buildings.

  Silently, she signalled to Vignette, and the two of them slipped from the tower, pushed up against the shadows. Susan was impressed at how the grey paint of her new body blended into the surroundings.

  She began to move down the street, but Vignette put a hand on her arm.

  ‘Wait,’ she said, so softly. ‘They trained us in this when I was conscripted. Take a few moments to tune in with your surroundings.’

  Susan did so.

  The dark buildings around her seemed to solidify into view, partially illuminated by the dark sky above. She wondered if any of them housed others of the half-fused, ancient and forgotten. Strange, it was so un-Artemisian, leaving metal in a place without a purpose.

  ‘Okay,’ said Vignette. She began to move down the wall, heading back the way that Susan had come earlier.

  ‘Not that way!’ said Susan. ‘He’s back there somewhere.’

  ‘There’s nothing the other way,’ said Vignette. ‘Just the Centre City. We don’t want to go there…’

  Her words were lost in a flurry of movement. Susan saw something big and black hurtle past, she heard the clatter of metal on metal, of metal slamming onto brick and stone.

  ‘Stupid, Stupid, Stupid!’

  It was the Storm Trooper, it was on top of Vignette, had both her hands clasped in one of his. He was sitting on her chest, his big body humming with power.

  ‘Only two places to hide. Through this door or that one. I only had to sit and wait to see which you emerged from. But hold on…’ He looked closer, looked into Vignette’s eyes. ‘You’re not the woman I found earlier. Who are you?’

  Susan brought down both her hands as hard as she could on the back of the Storm Trooper’s neck, hoping to break the coil there. There was a dull thud and pain shot through the electro-muscles of her hand.

  The Storm Trooper moved so fast, his arm swung back and caught Susan’s head, cracking an eye and sending an electric snowstorm fizzing across her sight.

  Vignette had twisted one hand free, but she wasn’t fighting, she was patiently fiddling with the Storm Trooper’s wrist.

  ‘Hey, stop that!’

  The Storm Trooper turned his attention back to Vignette, and Susan dived for his free arm, grabbing it through the storm of electricity that danced across her broken vision. It was enough time for Vignette to finish what she was doing: she had unshipped the Storm Trooper’s hand. He let out an electronic roar and brought his other hand down on her head, denting it.

  Now Susan grabbed him around the neck again and set to work finding her
way through the panelling there, trying to locate his coil. Bright lights swirled around her, she wasn’t sure if it was feedback or the stars above.

  ‘What are you doing, you rusty Tokvah? Get off me!’

  The Storm Trooper wasn’t shouting at her. Her world lurched as he got to his feet, and Susan saw Vignette there on the floor, a wicked smile on her face, twisted metal around her hands, and she realized that Vignette had pulled it from the Storm Trooper, pulled it from between his legs.

  ‘You little Spartz!’

  Vignette giggled, tugged harder at the pliable blue wire. The Storm Trooper yelled again, stamped down hard on Vignette’s thigh. She let out an electronic squeal of pain, but she tugged harder on the wire. The Storm Trooper jerked back and Susan, still clinging to his neck, fought to keep her grip. She scrabbled again at the panelling there, but he was too well designed, there was no easy access to his coil.

  Now the Storm Trooper reached back with his one remaining hand, and Susan saw her chance. The panelling at his shoulder lifted a little as he raised his arm, and she took hold of it, jerked it upwards, stabbed up into exposed electromuscle and smiled grimly as he shrieked. Vignette kept pulling more wire from the Storm Trooper, wrapping it around his legs, tangling him up, sending him mad with rage. He kicked at her, catching her full in the chest, denting it badly, but still she fought on. Susan wriggled her fingers in the electromuscle at the shoulder, trying to get a grip, trying to tangle it, squeeze it, short it. She sent as much current through her hand as she could, there was a blue flash and the arm fell to his side, useless.

  And that was the beginning of the end for the Storm Trooper. He fought viciously, he had strength and power on his side, but he was fighting two women who were in the grip of a passion that had lain dormant all this time they had been in Artemis. It was a hatred that had grown in muffled darkness, repressed and compressed whilst the women struggled to survive. Now it arose with a vengeance, with a spitefulness and a loathing that was taken out on his metal body. They didn’t kill him: they tore off his metal panelling and removed his electromuscle in strips, they humiliated him, tying him up in his own wire. Then they left him, a mind marooned in a broken body whilst they stripped parts from him to repair themselves. Vignette removed one of his eyes and used it to replace the one of Susan’s he had broken. Susan bent some more of his metal with her own hands and used it to patch Vignette’s broken chest.

  ‘Go to the making rooms,’ she said. ‘They will fix you up there. You will make a good mother of Artemis. You handle metal well.’

  The Storm Trooper watched them with his one remaining eye. Occasionally, he let out an electronic moan. Eventually, Vignette detached his voicebox so they didn’t have to listen to him.

  ‘You seemed so afraid when I first saw you in the base of the tower,’ said Susan.

  ‘I was,’ said Vignette. ‘I ran away for too long. Perhaps now is the time to fight. First, though, I will go to the making rooms. And then, who knows? What about you?’

  ‘I’ll head for the Centre City,’ said Susan. ‘Perhaps my friend was taken there.’

  ‘You’ll only get so far dressed in that body.’

  ‘Then perhaps I will find myself on the front line. There are worse things that could happen.’

  ‘Will that help find your friend?’

  ‘No.’

  Vignette reached out and touched Susan’s shell, pulled loose a piece of swarf.

  ‘Stay smart,’ she said, suddenly practical. ‘Listen. I heard that the Generals are in disagreement. My advice, find one of the weaker ones and attach yourself to their staff. They’ll be grateful for your support. And you’ll be closer to the centre of power.’

  ‘Find a General? I don’t know anything about them.’

  ‘Learn. Go in search of Spoole, he’s isolated now.’

  ‘Spoole? He’s the robot who had my city destroyed. If I were ever to meet him, I think I would kill him.’

  Vignette smiled.

  ‘So you say. I always thought I would fight to the death, and yet look at me now, running away to hide in the middle of the enemy’s city. Until you live the reality, you can never be sure the way your mind is woven. It turns out that my mother wove my mind to place my survival above all else. Would killing Spoole help you find your friend? Would it help you find your husband?’

  Susan said nothing. She knew the way her mind was woven: her mother had made her mind to look after her husband, first and foremost. It was a current-draining moment, to realize that her thoughts of revenge meant nothing compared to this truth: that she could calmly work with the man who was ultimately responsible for her child’s death if it brought her closer to Karel.

  ‘You understand what I’m talking about, don’t you?

  They gazed at each other for a moment. Vignette looked down at the broken body of the Storm Trooper.

  ‘He’ll have heard everything we said.’

  Whatever cold hatred had filled Susan’s mind in the middle of the fighting was suddenly gone.

  ‘We have to kill him,’ said Vignette.

  ‘I know,’ said Susan. ‘But I don’t think I can.’

  ‘I can,’ said Vignette.

  She bent down said something so softly that Susan didn’t hear it. Then she reached around behind his neck and broke his coil.

  ‘What did you say to him?’ asked Susan.

  Vignette wore a nasty expression.

  ‘I told him that his wire was weak and of low quality.’

  ‘That was cruel.’

  ‘He would have killed us!’

  ‘He was only acting the way he was woven.’ Susan was suddenly sad.

  ‘Then so am I,’ said Vignette, coldly. Her eyes glowed for a moment and then faded back to normal level.

  ‘Good luck, Susan,’ she said.

  ‘You too.’

  The two women turned and headed off in opposite directions. Back to the lights of Artemis City. Back to the approaching war.

  Wa-Ka-Mo-Do

  Wa-Ka-Mo-Do and the rest of the troop waited amongst the tall shapes of the human crops. The plants were so strange. Where robot plants were thin and fibrous, ideal for making paper and other useful materials, these human crops were mutants, the yellow fruits at the top of the stalks hugely oversized, so heavy they threatened to topple the whole plant. No wonder the farmers out here were so angry! What use would plants like this be to the robots of Sangrel?

  He raised himself up and peered north through the top of the stalks.

  From this distance, Sangrel was a scene of golden radiance set on a black throne. The city was a collection of jewelled lights beneath the bright stars. Wa-Ka-Mo-Do wondered what was happening back there. Was La-Ver-Di-Arussah following his orders? There was nothing he could do about it out here, that was certain.

  He thought back over the past few days, wondering at the events in this province: his presence in Sangrel, the death in the market place, the trouble in Ell, the trouble that threatened here tonight, the humans.

  The humans were more powerful than the Emperor had led him to believe. Yet there was something more… He thought of Rachael, the night before. Her father’s behaviour, the way that her translator had kept cutting out.

  What was it they were holding back? Did the Emperor know?

  He remembered the Emperor’s insistence that this had nothing to do with the Book of Robots.

  It was funny, robots like La-Ver-Di-Arussah mocked him, questioned out loud if he believed in the Book of Robots.

  How could they be so stupid? Of course he didn’t. Wa-Ka-Mo-Do had the knowledge woven directly into his mind by his mother. He didn’t believe in the book, he knew it to be true. He knew that there was a pattern of instructions for the first robot mind. He knew that there was a way robots were supposed to be.

  What terrified him was the thought that he may have met his makers. He hoped that it wasn’t true.

  Someone tapped him on the shoulder, and he turned to see the captain beckoning. He
followed him through the tall plants, pushing aside the mutant stalks until they came to a path trampled through the centre of the crops. Wa-Ka-Mo-Do bent down to examine the trail. It was recent. Quickly, silently, he followed it until it came to a fork. He listened carefully. He could hear a sound in the distance. Robots trying to move quietly.

  Wa-Ka-Mo-Do pointed to one path after the other, indicating that the troops should split up. The captain nodded and gestured to some of the red-brass soldiers behind him. Wa-Ka-Mo-Do watched them lope quickly down the path, impressed. These soldiers were well built and well trained. A few civilians should present them with no problems.

  He signalled to the remaining soldiers to follow, and led them silently down the path. Up ahead he could hear the sound of splashing. Petrol. They were going to set fire to the crops, just as the Vestal Virgins had predicted. He unslung his shotgun and swept it in a wide circle, indicating that the soldiers should fan out.

  Somewhere in the distance he heard the crackle of gunfire, and he realized it was the captain attacking.

  ‘Now!’ he shouted.

  The soldiers jumped forward, surprising the saboteurs, firing once, twice. They dropped their petrol canisters. Wa-Ka-Mo-Do drew his sword and slashed down at a third robot. The saboteurs were efficiently dispatched.

  ‘Stop!’ he commanded, holding the blade of his sword before a soldier’s raised gun. ‘We need at least one to question.’

  The hum of current died away, leaving the robots standing amongst the broken stalks. Broken bodies lay around them, the living still squealing in electronic pain. As for the dead: twisted metal uncoiled across the ground. Wa-Ka-Mo-Do suddenly realized just how pathetic these people were. Their panelling was of cheap tin, they hummed and buzzed as they moved. They sounded as if their electromuscles were full of dust and dirt. He could see how poorly repaired they were, and he wondered when they had last seen the inside of a forge.

  ‘On your knees,’ shouted a soldier, pushing the captive down. She reached out and unfastened one arm, whilst another soldier did the same on the other side.

  ‘Please don’t kill me,’ begged the saboteur on the ground. ‘My husband, my children-’