A robot could see for miles here, look across plains that fed the thin cattle and sheep, bred by Yukawan robots throughout the centuries to remove as much of the muscle as possible to leave the skin and bone that were so useful to industry. Oily crops flowered in the distance, bright yellow marks against the horizon, punctuated by the glint of sunlight on the metal skins of robots tending the fields.
But something disturbed the harmony. The earth had been churned up to leave great brown scars in the ground.
‘What is it?’ asked Jai-Lyn. ‘What’s happened there?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Wa-Ka-Mo-Do.
They gazed from the compartment in silence, two robots in a little place of metal and wood looking out on a world seemingly destroyed. The carefully harmony of fields and cattle and trees, cultivated over hundreds of years of Empire, had been ruined. It was like a robot had wiped his hand across a picture on a sheet of metal, erasing it. The brown churned earth seemingly stretched for miles.
‘It’s like when a farmer plants crops,’ said Wa-Ka-Mo-Do slowly. ‘Only much, much bigger.’
‘I have never seen a farmer plant crops,’ said Jai-Lyn.
‘I grew bonsai trees, back in Ekrano,’ answered Wa-Ka-Mo-Do, engrossed by the scene before him. The excavation was so large. What possible use could it be? And then he saw something else.
‘Do you see it too?’ asked Jai-Lyn.
‘Yes,’ replied Wa-Ka-Mo-Do, staring at the yellow machine that worked its way across the grassy plain in the distance. The machine was so big, and so smooth. So much metal, it seemed to have been poured in one piece. Behind the machine stretched a brown ribbon of churned earth.
‘That’s what’s causing those marks,’ said Jai-Lyn. ‘But I have never seen a machine like it. What robot could have built that?’
‘I don’t think it’s robot-built,’ answered Wa-Ka-Mo-Do. He caught a movement high up in the sky. He and Jai-Lyn looked up at the silver shape that drew a line of condensation through the heavens.
‘I think the animals have done this.’
Karel
Karel followed Banjo Macrodocious through the hills. His metal squeaked as he strode after the other robot: it had been too long since he had had time to tend to it, but of his mental turmoil, there was no sign.
‘What’s a pilgrim?’ he asked carefully.
‘The opposite of my kind. Morphobia Alligator will explain everything to you.’
Karel didn’t press the point. If Banjo Macrodocious had been told to say nothing, then he would say nothing. Still, he was distracted by other thoughts. Susan was alive! Somewhere to the south, his wife knelt in Artemis City to twist the wire of other men. He should be heading there right now, yet Banjo Macrodocious was leading him west. He caught glimpses of the Northern Sea to his right as they traversed the rough green hills, cutting across this foreign land of grass and stone. A grey beetle watched him as he walked by, metal shell warming in the sun, then he felt a boiling of electricity at his feet and looked down to see he had kicked an ants’ nest, the little creatures swarmed around his feet, scraping nicks of metal from his soles. He leaped forward, stamping his feet hard.
Banjo Macrodocious watched him.
‘Insects everywhere,’ said Karel. ‘We must be getting near to ore.’ He paused, tasting his surroundings. ‘I can feel it in the ground. Very faint.’
‘We are heading towards Presper Boole,’ Banjo Macrodocious volunteered. ‘Its prosperity was built on metal ore and trade.’
‘I’ve never heard of it,’ replied Karel.
‘That was a long time ago, when many robots still travelled the Northern Road to the paths beneath the sea. There was much trade between Shull and the robots at the Top of the World.’
‘You believe in the robots at the Top of the World?’ asked Karel. He smiled. ‘I suppose you do. You believe in the Book of Robots after all.’
‘I don’t believe,’ said Banjo Macrodocious. ‘I know it to be true.’
Of course he did, thought Karel, it was woven into his mind. Banjo Macrodocious really would think that he had part of the plan for the original robots there in his head, he really would believe that he knew a little about how robots should behave.
And yet, who was he to feel anything but envy? At the moment, Karel was certain of nothing more than the fact he wanted his wife back.
‘How much further?’ he asked, as they crested the top of another low hill.
‘Nearly there,’ answered Banjo Macrodocious, and they both looked down.
The land fell into a wide sea inlet fed by a river that flowed from the south, the waters churning against the incoming tide. Across the way Karel saw more land, rocky cliffs and edges dressed in green grass. He felt caught between the elements, exposed to the choices of the world. Which way now? North beneath the vast expanse of the Moonshadow sea, down the river to the south, or follow the coast to where it took him? Then, further down the hillside, he saw the ancient remains of a town. Grey stone buildings, long broken by the elements. All the metal stripped away.
‘That was Presper Boole,’ said Banjo Macrodocious. ‘Across the way you can see Blaize.’
Karel looked across the water and saw the other town. It looked much bigger than Presper Boole, and better constructed. The buildings rose higher, they were squarer and topped by spires and towers that gleamed white even under the dull skies.
‘Blaize must have been quite impressive in its day,’ he ventured.
‘Both cities were,’ said Banjo Macrodocious. ‘I have the memory of them woven into my mind. They were built of the riches that flowed down from the Top of the World.’
Seeing the spectacular remains of the two cities there, Karel almost believed it was true. That there really were robots at the Top of the World.
‘Greetings, Karel.’
The voice came from somewhere to his side. Karel turned to gaze at the strangest robot he had ever seen. Everything about it was different. The proportions of its body were all wrong: its arms far too long and jointless, they waved and rippled like snakes. Its head was the shape of a droplet of water turned upside down, rounded at the top and then curving inwards and downwards to meet at a sharp point well below its neck. It had two large black hemispheres for eyes, set wide apart, so that Karel gained the impression it could see behind as well as in front. It had a fat body, like a light bulb, bulging at the top and pinched in where the short legs joined on. It didn’t have feet as such, instead four rods curved out from its ankles like blunt claws. They pierced the grass as it walked towards Karel, making him feel deeply uneasy. He quelled the feeling.
‘Greetings,’ replied Karel. ‘You must be Morphobia Alligator.’
Morphobia Alligator bowed in a complicated movement that made Karel’s gyros wobble. The other robot seemed to have joints in all the wrong places.
‘You are Karel, yes, yes? Formerly of Turing City, now stateless since the fall of the Northern Kingdom.’
‘Were you there?’ asked Karel.
‘No, no. But Banjo Macrodocious was. All of them were. When that place was on the brink of collapse, they were sent out to find safer lands so that the knowledge they held in their minds would be preserved. Some of them found me. Strange how old enemies work together in these times.’
‘Banjo Macrodocious is your enemy? You don’t believe in the Book of Robots?’
‘Oh, we believe what it says is the truth. Oh yes, yes! But that misses the point.’ His eyes brightened, and Karel sensed he was amused. ‘Anyway, I was told that you were nearby. I asked them to bring you to see me.’
Karel was confused. The robot’s words made little sense. Even its voice sounded wrong, like it was being modulated in a different way. And then Karel noticed the strangest thing about the robot.
‘Your body. That metal, what is it?’
‘Aluminium,’ said Morphobia Alligator.