And that wasn’t all.
Karel was out there somewhere. Her husband was alive, somewhere in Northern Shull. So she had been told, anyway. What would she tell him, if he ever found her? That she just sat here and waited for him? That the one friend she had here had vanished, and she had just let her go?
That decided her.
She was going to get out of here. If it was too big a step to leave the city for the moment, then at the very least she would find Nettie.
And then, if he hadn’t come to her by then, they would go look for Karel.
Karel
South of Blaize, the valleys were full of dead towns. Hollow shells of stone buildings, long stripped of any metal, shedding their flat slates across the grass-grown road.
‘What are they doing here?’ wondered Karel.
‘Perhaps they mined the surrounding hills to make robots, and the robots just walked away down the road, leaving these buildings behind them to rot.’
‘Could be,’ said Karel, looking down yet another narrow valley crowded with dead buildings. Grey slate held together with green moss, all crowded higgledy piggledy together.
‘They remind me of something…’ began Melt.
‘What?’ asked Karel.
‘… nothing.’
‘Were you remembering something about your past?’
‘I remember lots of things. Morphobia Alligator told me this would happen. The metal of my mind is pushed together.’
‘I would have thought that would short it out,’ said Karel, suspiciously.
‘You would have to ask Morphobia Alligator about that,’ said Melt.
‘I’d like to ask Morphobia Alligator about a lot of things,’ snapped Karel, and he immediately felt bad about it. He had never seen a robot in such pain as Melt. He had tried to imagine himself trapped in the body, and had failed. He couldn’t have even stood up in it, he was sure.
Melt stumbled, a hiss of static pain briefly escaping from his voicebox.
‘Do you need a rest?’ Karel asked.
‘I’m fine.’
‘No, you’re not. You can’t go on much further.’ Karel scanned their surroundings. ‘That building over there looks like it used to be a forge. Come on. We can sit in there for a while. There may be some coal or metal remaining.’
‘The place will have been stripped centuries ago,’ said Melt. ‘You can feel the emptiness in this land. Let me keep on walking.’
Karel felt it too. There was nothing here but wind and grass and stone. The echoes of whatever life had once hammered metal here had long since faded. Then, up there, on the hillside, shaking green hands at the wind he saw…
‘Trees! They burn! I saw that in the Northern Kingdom. I could climb up there and cut some pieces from them. We could make a fire and dry our electromuscle at least. Heat some metal and bend it-’
‘It’s too wet,’ said Melt. ‘The wood will be too green.’
‘So you know something about trees?’ asked Karel, who knew nothing. There had been virtually no organic life back in Turing City.
‘I remember forests, and wood and carving,’ said Melt, gazing at the floor. Once more Karel had the impression he knew more than he was saying. It was as if the robot was deciding just what it would be safe to reveal. ‘But I don’t think it was me who did it. I remember that you need a sharp blade to cut into wood.’
‘Are there forests at the Top of the World?’
‘The Top of the World?’
‘You say that Morphobia Alligator brought you here, Melt. Do you think it was from the Top of the World?’ He gazed at the strange half-melted body of the other robot. Even before it had been damaged it would have been nothing like his own.
‘The Top of the World,’ repeated Melt. ‘I don’t know. I don’t remember.’
Liar, thought Karel, and then he immediately felt a surge of shameful panic as he watched Melt freeze in place. Slowly, the great lead and iron body toppled forward, landing on the ground with a crash that sent Karel’s own body rattling.
‘Melt!’ he called, ‘Melt! I’m sor-’ He stopped himself just in time. He was being ridiculous. Thinking that Melt was a liar hadn’t caused this failure. He knelt down and looked into the other robot’s eyes. They barely glowed, such was Melt’s exhaustion.
‘I’m okay,’ he said.
‘No you’re not!’ said Karel, and the sky unfolded a fall of rain that began to patter upon their metal shells.
‘Bullets,’ said Melt.
‘Rain,’ said Karel. ‘Just a shower. Come on, let’s get you into shelter.’
‘Soon pass,’ said Melt.
Karel took the robot by the shoulders and began to drag him awkwardly to the nearest building. He weighed so much! Melt said he had once been a soldier. What sort of a soldier would fight in a body like this?
Slowly, painfully, he dragged the other robot to shelter, metal grinding and scraping on the wet ground. Finally, he pulled him across the threshold and let him go.
Karel looked around the ancient room in which he found himself. Nothing but dry brick and stone and crumbling mortar. Green organic life grew around the cracks where water had made its way in. The place was long stripped of anything usefuclass="underline" he could feel the hollowness of his surroundings, empty of all metal.
‘Melt, I’m going out to look around. There must be some dry wood or something somewhere.’
Melt gave the faintest hiss of static in reply.
Karel re-emerged into the long grey street, huddled under the dull green hill beneath a wretched grey sky. The rain plinked on his shell, and he felt utterly miserable. A noise, the sound of shifting stone. He turned, but there was no one there.
Something had changed. Karel scanned the blank faces of the old buildings. Something was out there, he could feel it. A flicker of movement to his right and he swung round. Nothing.
‘Hello?’ he said, his voice lost in the pattering rain. ‘Morphobia Alligator?’
He sensed something behind him.
He turned around and saw two robots walking towards him, their hands raised in greeting. His feeling of pleasure at the sight of help quickly turned to disgust as he saw the state of the robots that approached.
Their bodies were dented and in poor repair, the squeaking and grinding noises they made as they walked showed what little care they took of themselves.
Worst of all though, and the sight of it filled him with utter revulsion, they were covered in rust.
Wa-Ka-Mo-Do looked around the Emperor’s Palace in deepening awe, trying to put his emotions into order, trying to make sense of the odd trepidation that he felt. It wasn’t the sight of the high, polished ceilings of brass and titanium; it wasn’t the paper scrolls that hung down over the brushed aluminium walls, a few strokes of paint evincing autumnal scenes, a bough of cherry blossom or elegant robots from times past dressed in copper bodies. It wasn’t even the sound of the robot gamelan that played in the corner of the room, and this was unusual, for Wa-Ka-Mo-Do, warrior and poet, understood the music of the metallophone and the gong, and those instruments cast in Sangrel were famous throughout Yukawa for their clarity and tone.
No, what truly moved him to silent wonder was the sight of the animals that moved through the building. Humans everywhere, their soft brown and pink and muddy-yellow bodies covered in bright fabrics. That the Emperor should give this place up to the animals was hard enough to believe, that they could accept this gift seemingly without understanding its significance was beyond comprehension. Yet it was so, for the animals had pushed aside the busts and vases and screens of the palace, with no regard for the harmony of the place. And then, insult upon insult, they had brought in their own furniture. Plastic chairs; long tables covered in cloth; ugly white lights. Everything they used had function but little form. Their artefacts were plain and ugly, an insult to the Emperor. And everywhere they had draped the long black wires that snaked through the rooms and corridors, singing with the strange electricity that the humans used. Rectangular screens hung on walls, flickering with pictures of other places, they made Wa-Ka-Mo-Do’s head buzz if he looked too closely.