‘The Vestal Virgins?’ Wa-Ka-Mo-Do feigned innocence, but he remembered the Emperor’s words back in the Silent City. He knew the Vestal Virgins had been sent here to watch him. ‘But why would the Emperor send them here?’ he asked.
‘To ensure that Emperor’s wishes are followed.’
‘Am I to command them too?’
‘Honoured Commander, you joke. For you know, of course, that the Vestal Virgins answer to none save the Emperor.’
And perhaps not even him, Wa-Ka-Mo-Do added to himself.
‘There may be another reason for the Vestal Virgins’ presence, Honoured Commander. For it is known that where the Emperor wishes to forge peace and harmony and accord, there he sends his Imperial Army.’
‘Indeed.’
‘And where the seeds of discord are to be sewn, then the Vestal Virgins can be found, tending and watering and pruning.’ Ka-Lo-Re-Harballah lowered his voice further, and Wa-Ka-Mo-Do could feel the burning shame he felt has he gave his warning. ‘Watch the humans, Honoured Commander. Listen to their words. For I do not think they are telling all.’
Wa-Ka-Mo-Do looked around the square, felt the peace and the tranquility of hundreds of years of history.
‘It is difficult to think that such things can come to an end, Ka-Lo-Re-Harballah.’
‘I fear they have ended already,’ said Ka-Lo-Re-Harballah, gazing at the green-panelled humans by the balustrade. They had finished their contemplation of the view and were walking back to the Emperor’s Palace. They seemed to march almost in step.
‘Come, let us enter the Copper Master’s house, Ka-Lo-Re-Harballah. I’m sure that things will not be as bad as you describe.’
‘Perhaps not.’
Wa-Ka-Mo-Do placed his foot on the steps leading up to the white house, but Ka-Lo-Re-Harballah touched a hand to his elbow.
‘Before we do…’ Ka-Lo-Re-Harballah seemed to be struggling with his conscience. ‘I do not like to say this, Honoured Commander, but I would speak the truth. You are an outsider, one of the Eleven from the High Spires. Robots famed for their skill on the battlefield, robots who proved themselves in the past when Yukawa had enemies on its borders, but who are rarely required in these more, shall we say, settledtimes.’
‘That may be so, Ka-Lo-Re-Harballah.’
‘Indeed. I am sorry to say this, Honoured Commander, but do you not feel that you are a strange choice for such an important command as this?’
‘Explain yourself, Ka-Lo-Re-Harballah,’ said Wa-Ka-Mo-Do sternly, though the same suspicions walked his own mind.
‘I am sorry, Honoured Commander, but animals walk abroad in Sangrel, dissent is rife among the population. Surely this is a job for a commander of the Imperial Army, one versed in politics, one who knows the area? A robot such as La-Ver-Di-Arussah? Yet when the call came, no such robot was found to be suitable.’
Wa-Ka-Mo-Do said nothing. Emboldened, Ka-Lo-Re-Harballah spoke on.
‘I wonder why the Emperor has had you sent here, and I feel it is because it will not matter so much if you fail.’
The young robot gazed directly into Wa-Ka-Mo-Do’s eyes.
‘I fear that you are to be made a scapegoat, Honoured Commander.’
Susan knelt in the making room, twisting the metal of the Storm Trooper who sat before her.
She hated the Storm Troopers, hated the thick feel of their wire in her hands, hated the sharp feel of the potential current in there.
‘There we are ladies, you may put down the minds.’
Susan remembered the first time she had put down a half-completed mind, the horror she had felt at seeing the wire untwist and the potential life die. Now it was such a common occurrence she felt nothing except an emptiness inside, like someone had scooped out all the living parts of her body, leaving behind nothing but the metal shell. She felt like a ghost.
There were nineteen other mothers in Susan’s making room, all of them women who had been captured from Turing City, all of them united by their hatred of her. They hated her for her friendship with Nettie, hated her for what she had been back in Turing City: the wife of Karel. They thought Karel was a traitor, because of who his father was. Yet was it Karel’s fault that his mother had been raped by an Artemisian soldier? After all, it was no more than what was happening to them all now.
The twenty Storm Troopers in the room filed out, their wire cooling on the floor where the women had dropped it. Susan could feel the current surging in their strong bodies, and she hated it. She hated their arrogant swagger, hated the way they looked at the women, at everyone, like they were inferior beings. Didn’t they realize that such thoughts weren’t the Artemisian way? She wanted to scream that truth out to them, even though she wasn’t an Artemisian herself.
Nettie waited until the last of the Storm Troopers had left the room; she listened to their heavy tread ringing down the metal corridor. When she was sure they were out of earshot, she spoke up brightly.
‘Now ladies, what have we learned?’
The women looked at Nettie with contempt, all of them except Susan. Nettie had never woven a mind herself, yet she was responsible for training them all how to weave minds for Artemis. But there was something else, Susan recognized. Nettie was always at her brightest when she was unhappiest.
‘I don’t get it,’ said Diehl, more in frustration than anything else. ‘The minds will be strong, but they won’t be able to think properly.’
Some of the other women murmured agreement.
‘Don’t worry about that ladies, it doesn’t matter,’ said Nettie. ‘Is the basic pattern sound?’
She looked at Susan for help.
‘It’s sound,’ said Susan, ignoring the looks of the other women. ‘It just doesn’t make any sense. Seriously, Nettie, I really don’t understand. Why are we doing this?’
‘Nyro’s will,’ said Nettie, and she smiled at them all.
The women said nothing. They had learned long ago that Nyro’s will was a euphemism for orders from Artemis command.
Nettie looked back to the doorway of the making room, and there was a flicker of uncertainty in her eyes.
‘Listen,’ said Nettie, ‘Please! Don’t make a fuss. It could be so much worse. Really! The other women are making two minds a night now, you know that, don’t you? I had to push to get this assignment for you ladies. Really, I did!’
‘We know,’ said Susan. The other women made grudging noises of agreement. ‘We believe you, we’re grateful, honestly. But what is going on?’
‘No one will tell me,’ said Nettie, and she sagged suddenly as a wave of misery overwhelmed her. ‘I don’t know what’s happening! Everything is confusion within the city. Something happened up in the north. Something bad. Spoole and the Generals returned to the city much earlier than expected and suddenly everything has been put on a war footing. We have stepped up production of everything: minds, robots, metal.’
‘It will be Kavan,’ said Diehl. She looked around the assembled women. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘You’ve all heard the soldiers talk as we kneel before them. They think that Kavan is some sort of hero. Another Nyro, almost, and you know how much they think of her.’
‘Not all the soldiers,’ said another woman. ‘The Storm Troopers aren’t so keen on Kavan.’
Kavan, thought Susan. He was the robot who had destroyed Turing City. He had killed her child and had taken her husband away from her. Now, maybe, he was returning to Artemis City.
She wondered what she would do if she ever met him.
Kavan
The Uncertain Army moved south like a silver tide flowing through the valleys of the central mountain range.
Just like a tide, reflected Kavan, for he had as much command over the army as he had over the waters. The robots sloshed forwards and backwards, rushed up into the surrounding hills and mountains, spilling over the edges, sometimes never to be seen again, sometimes to come trickling back in metal streams.