Wa-Ka-Mo-Do read the message.
What happened in Ell?
Wa-Ka-Mo-Do felt as if the current was draining from his electromuscle. He remembered the scene in the railway station just before he left the Silent City. All those soldiers, commandeering the train. They were heading to Ell.
‘Just how far from here is Ell, Ka-Lo-Re-Harballah?’
‘One hundred and nine miles.’
‘What has happened there?’
‘I don’t know, Honoured Commander.’ And again, there was a squeak in his voice, ‘we are too busy with the problems here in Sangrel.’
He turned to one of the escorting soldiers, and pointed to the wall.
‘Clean this,’ he said.
The soldier was already moving to do so. Two of the other soldiers, meanwhile, had drawn their swords and had seized two people from the crowd.
‘What are they doing?’ asked Wa-Ka-Mo-Do.
‘La-Ver-Di-Arussah’s orders, Honoured Commander. For every act such as this, four peasants are to be executed, as an example.’
‘Hold,’ said Wa-Ka-Mo-Do. It wouldn’t do to undermine his second-in-command, he knew that. But at the same time, these were bad orders. They would heighten rebellion, not quell it. He came to a decision.
‘Bring them with us,’ he said. ‘I wish to meet La-Ver-Di-Arussah directly.’
Karel
The last of the evening sun died in the doorway, as Karel set to work on Melt by the light of the fire. The knife he had made was not as hard or as sharp as he would like, but it would do for now. He scored a line down the side of Melt’s left thigh, cutting his way into the dissolved seam there.
‘As we travel south we may find better-equipped workshops,’ he said. ‘We should be able to keep on improving you.’
‘Thank you.’
‘How long were you waiting here for me?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘How many days? How many sunsets?’
‘Four sunsets. I sat with Morphobia Alligator. We talked.’
‘What about?’
‘This planet. Shull.’
‘Morphobia Alligator is a strange robot. Have you met any like him before?’
‘No. I’m sure of that at least. None that look like him, nor any that think like him. He asked me a question: how do beetles and whales and all the other robot animals reproduce when they don’t have hands?’
‘I don’t know!’
‘It’s a good point, though, isn’t it? When robots reproduce, the female twists the metal that comes from a male to make a mind. Then they place that mind in a body they have built themselves, with their own hands. How do animals make bodies, when they have no hands?’
Karel worked away at the seam. The metal there was so hard, he was struggling to scrape it away.
‘Does it matter?’
Melt didn’t answer. He was thinking of something else. ‘Do you know he counts days backwards? Wednesday follows Thursday by his reckoning.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know. I’m not sure that Morphobia Alligator is the same as us. He’s not quite a robot.’
Karel thought of the building at the northern coast of Shull, the one Morphobia Alligator had called the reliquary. He thought of the mind patterns drawn on the wall there. Did Morphobia Alligator really have a mind twisted in a different way? Was such a thing possible?
‘I think he’s waiting for something. Something in the future. Every sunset was one less to him, not one more, eeeeeeeeeeee!’
The last word was lost in an electronic squeak. Karel had felt the surge of electricity through the knife.
‘I’m sorry!’ he said. ‘Did I hit the electromuscle?’
‘Not exactly. But the muscle and the metal are joined together.’
‘I’ll stop then. I’ll try the other side.’
‘No, go on. I can ignore the pain.’
Karel looked up into Melt’s dim grey eyes, then he steeled himself. He resumed his hacking at the seam, hesitating when he felt the surge of current, going on when Melt commanded him to.
The night passed. The doorway to the forge was lit up in pale green.
‘I’ve done all I can,’ said Karel, dropping the knife and flexing his fingers.
Melt stretched, this way and that.
‘I feel a lot freer, thank you.’
‘I’m sorry I hurt you.’
‘You did your best. It wasn’t easy for you, either.’
Karel looked through the forge door. The broken archway to the sea framed the distant town of Presper Boole, now lit by the dawn. The robots who had built this city were fine architects, he thought. What could have happened to them? He dismissed the thought for the moment. He had more pressing concerns.
‘Another clear day coming. We should set off now, get some miles covered.’
‘But you haven’t attended to your own body yet.’
‘No matter,’ said Karel, looking wistfully at the containers of thin oil. But he didn’t feel as if he had anything to complain about, having seen how Melt was suffering.
‘No, it does matter,’ said Melt. ‘Here, let me see what I can do. I was a soldier once, and that’s a soldier’s body you are wearing.’
‘If I could, I would exchange it for another.’
‘Then we shall find one for you.’
‘Thank you, Melt, but for the moment I will keep this body. It will be to our advantage to pass as Artemisians.’
Melt came around behind Karel.
‘Take off your panelling, and I will straighten it for you and hammer out its dents. I will file it and apply solder and rub in oil.’
Karel didn’t need to be told twice. He fumbled a little at first with the joints. The body was built so that an enemy would find it difficult to pierce its seams, and Karel was unused to this design. Finally he stripped away the panels of his upper body and sat there, naked electromuscle glinting in the firelight. He examined its pattern. There was nothing fancy there, just simple arrangements that any soldier would be able to knit and maintain. The last owner of the body had done a reasonable job of keeping it in order. There wasn’t time to knit new muscle, so for the moment Karel did the best he could, straightening out kinks here and there and applying oil or the hot knife as appropriate. He cleaned out his feet and his legs, he did what he could with the cogs and gears of his chest section. All the time behind him came the scrape and tap and bang of Melt working on the panelling.
Eventually they were both done. Karel accepted the panelling and was impressed by the neat job Melt had made of it. Everything fitted smoothly back together. Karel swung his arms and stamped his feet, feeling how easily the metal slid over itself. There were none of the annoying clicks and catches he had grown used to over the past few days.
‘A good job,’ said Karel. ‘Whoever you were, Melt, you were a skilled builder.’
‘Thank you,’ said Melt, obviously pleased.
They made their way from the forge into the clear morning. A fresh breeze blew off the sea, and Karel was pleased to note it no longer penetrated his body.
They looked around the large square into which the sea road emerged. They were in the middle of a crossroads. Another road ran southwards, through the remains of the city. Once grand buildings lined either side of the road, their facades broken, their upper stories missing. Rusty trails ran down marble facings, metalwork long dissolved by the rain.
‘The Northern Road,’ said Melt. ‘Morphobia Alligator said that was the way to your wife.’
‘Morphobia Alligator,’ said Karel. ‘I wonder where he is now? Is he watching us, do you think?’
‘I don’t know.’
Karel gazed southwards, down the lines of buildings to the distant hills.
‘Very well,’ he said. ‘Let’s go. Susan, I’m on my way.’
They set off.
Sangrel had grown rich on copper. Green copper was a constant theme in the patterned roofs of the city. In the past, on special days, the most honoured robots of the city had dressed in new copper skins, the metal so fresh it shone pink in the sunlight.
No wonder the second most important building in the city was the Copper Master’s House.