Kavan stood near the start of the bridge, looking at the biggest bolt he had ever seen. It was screwed into a wide metal plate riveted into the black rock. Red paint covered the large mushroom rivets that held the construction against the mountainside. Turning around, Kavan saw a huge red pipe looping up into the air, arching out over the sheer drop of the chasm by which they stood, and then dropping down to the pier of stone that rose from the centre of the chasm, a stepping stone between the mountains. Another red pipe did the same in parallel, a hundred feet away. And suspended beneath these two pipes, a road.
It was a bridge, but a bridge like none that Kavan had ever seen before.
‘How come we never saw anything like this when we conquered these mountains?’
‘We never came this far west,’ answered Calor.
‘They have to keep it painted,’ said Ada, ‘or the iron would just flake away.’
‘How do they do it?’ wondered Kavan.
‘Magnetic feet,’ said Ada.
He gazed across the bridge, felt the wind whipping through his body.
‘It would be the easiest thing to defend the far side.’
‘Then what shall we do?’ asked Calor.
‘I’ll cross,’ said Kavan. ‘Perhaps they will speak to me.’
‘And if they don’t?’
‘The Uncertain Army will find its own way south. Ada can guide it out of the mountains, and after that Nyro’s will shall prevail.’
‘I’ll come with you, Kavan,’ said Calor. Kavan looked at the Scout, saw how she twitched and buzzed.
‘No, Calor. I need you to stay and organize the Scouts. Don’t let any more of them across.’
‘Okay, Kavan.’
Kavan stepped onto the bridge. So much metal, it was a wonder it hadn’t been taken and twisted into more minds and robots. Whoever guarded it must be strong indeed.
He began to walk, listening to the wind singing through the struts and cables, looking down at the peaks below him, wrapped in clouds and mist. This would be a clear blue morning, were it not for the fading silver light that filled the sky. Now Kavan reached the central pier: an island of stone on which an iron and brick support for the bridge had been built. He looked down. There were buildings there, clustered on this island in the sky, and on the roof of one, the silver body of a Scout lay, unmoving. Someone would retrieve the metal later, one way or another.
Now he moved on to the second span. He saw movement ahead. Figures on the other side of the bridge. More and more of them, crowding in. Robots, but oddly built. Too tall, too thin.
Kavan walked on. A robot detached itself from the group ahead and came forward onto the bridge to meet him. They met halfway across the second span, standing in the wind above the swirling mists below, the silver light fading from the sky above them.
‘You are Kavan, and behind you is your army.’
‘Sort of,’ said Kavan. ‘They may become my army. Will you join us or fight us?’
‘I haven’t yet decided.’
Kavan looked at the other robot. It was much taller and thinner than he was. Its limbs seemed to bend like springs when it moved, and Kavan wondered how it would look climbing from rock to rock up here in the mountains, how it would swing its body from ledge to ledge.
‘Who are you?’ he asked.
‘My name is Goeppert.’
‘Are you the leader of these troops?’
‘They aren’t troops, and I am not their leader. A robot must follow the path woven into its own mind. Some paths lead up into the mountains, and some down to the plains-’
‘No,’ said Kavan. ‘I have marched from the top to the bottom of this continent, and I have conquered all that I have seen. I’ve heard robots issue challenges, I’ve heard robots plead for mercy, and I have heard robots spout philosophy. It all means nothing to me in the end. Tell me who you are, Goeppert.
‘I am a Speaker. Some days ago another army came through these mountains. A small group of Artemisians. They were fleeing a robot named Kavan, they said that he might follow them down this path. They gave us much metal. Gold and silver, platinum, lead. Metals that we do not often see in these mountains. They promised us more if we were to fight him, should he come this way.’
‘And what did you say?’
‘We promised that we would, and we took the metal.’
Kavan shifted, his left side squeaking.
‘I would have promised the same,’ he said. ‘That way I would have the metal. So you will fight us?’
Goeppert held his gaze.
‘We don’t know. Promises made to lowlanders mean nothing.’
Silence in the silver light.
‘Then will you let us pass?’
‘What would you offer us if we were to do so?’
‘The chance to follow Nyro. I go to take control of Artemis.’
‘And if we allowed you to pass, but we chose to remain here?’
‘Then I would take my army to Artemis. If I were successful in my conquest I would someday return here and conquer this land.’
Goeppert smiled.
‘I think you might find that more difficult than you would imagine. Even so, I appreciate your honesty. The world is not an honest place at the moment. Even the sky is wrong.’
‘Zuse flared last night,’ said Kavan. ‘I’ve never seen that before. Is it a feature of these mountains?’
‘No.’
Kavan said nothing.
‘Do you know the whales are dying?’ said Goeppert, suddenly.
Kavan was little unsettled by this change in the conversation. ‘The whales?’ he said. ‘What do you know about whales, living up here in the mountains?’
‘We listen to their songs. They are in constant communication with each other. Didn’t you know this?’
Kavan didn’t care.
‘Goeppert, I travel with an Uncertain Army. It will follow me forwards, it will not go backwards, and if it stands still for too long it will simply evaporate to nothing. I cannot afford to stand here all day, so tell me, will you fight me, or let me pass?’
Goeppert didn’t say a word, but somewhere behind him, somewhere out in the land of Born, robots were detaching themselves from the mountainside, coming into view, forming themselves into lines on the road beyond the bridge.
‘Both,’ said Goeppert. ‘For the moment we will let you pass. We will even give you troops to accompany you. They will learn how to fight, and maybe return here with more metal from the plains.’
‘Good,’ said Kavan.
‘The robots who return here will be stronger for having travelled. They will bring us new knowledge that we will put to use.’
Kavan understood. ‘You seek to temper yourself further.’ He looked back to the far side of the bridge where his troops waited. ‘I feel no such need.’
Spoole gazed at the map of the city.
‘Is this the best they could do?’ he asked.
‘They did well, given the time they had available,’ said General Sandale reprovingly.
Spoole doubted it. Someone had taken a sheet of polished steel and engraved a map upon it. The Basilica was a rectangle in the centre, the forges clustered around it. Beyond it was Half-fused City, the railway stations, the goods yards, the chemical tanks, the construction yards, the making rooms, the barracks, the gasometers and cable walks… All the signs of a busy city. Beyond all that, there was a planned outline of the defences.
He looked at the lines of the trenches, represented on the map. They were well laid out, offering clear, overlapping lines of fire. The railway lines picked their way through them, offering an effective way of keeping the front lines stocked with ammunition.
‘We thought of running lines out beyond the defences,’ said Sandale. ‘Fill a load of wagons with guns and send them out to fire a broadside into Kavan’s troops.’
‘It would only work once, but it could be effective. Still,’ he said grudgingly, ‘the overall plan looks workable.’
But will it be enough? he wondered. He had seen the way the troops had retreated back in the mountains. Kavan hadn’t even had a proper army then. If he reached Artemis City, and he would, then he would do so with troops hardened by the march, and tempered by the fighting they would have been forced into on the way.