The helicopter swooped towards it, and Karel wanted to tell someone about what he was feeling, but he held back. He didn’t want to speak to Melt. At least, not yet. More than ever he was convinced that the other robot was hiding something. The heavy lead man just sat there, gazing at nothing.
Karel looked at the human who sat in the back of the craft with the pair of them. It was looking at Karel with interest, examining his body, looking at the fingers on his hand.
‘Hello,’ he said, holding out his hand as he had seen the other humans do. ‘My name is Karel.’
The animal smiled and took it, moved it up and down, then pointed apologetically at his head. He wasn’t wearing one of the devices that would let him understand their words. Odd, thought Karel, that there would be different ways of speaking. He thought about what Ruth had said, how robots weren’t very curious, and he wondered, should he be more curious? The Story of Eric and the Mountain… That was meant to be important. Melt said he knew that story. Maybe when they landed he would get Melt to tell it to him.
The craft dropped lower. Karel saw railway lines in the distance; he saw a train shooting along at incredible speed. A human device. He leaned forward, twisting his head around the window, trying to follow its course. What was making it move so fast?
A voice crackled into life.
‘This is the pilot. I’m afraid this is about as far south as I can go. Head a little to the east and you’ll come across a railway line. Follow that to Artemis City.’
‘Thank you,’ said Karel.
The hum of the engine increased and the craft touched down in a cloud of dust. The human slid the door open and slapped Karel on the shoulder, sending the metal there ringing. Karel dropped to the ground, then turned and helped Melt do the same in his heavy body. They raised their hands in goodbye as the engine noise deepened, and the craft lifted and flew back north.
Karel and Melt watched it go.
‘Okay,’ said Karel to Melt. ‘You’ve not been honest with me. Tell me now, I want to know the full truth!’
‘I will tell you,’ said Melt.
‘I want to know everything.’
‘Yes. But on the way. We need to speak to the robots of Artemis. We need to tell them what’s going to happen to them!’
‘Speak to Artemis? They won’t listen to us.’
‘They better had. Or they’ll all be killed. All of them, and all of us. I’ve seen this before. I know what the humans are going to do. ..’
Wa-Ka-Mo-Do followed the three women into the remains of the Copper Master’s house. The few robots remaining there averted their eyes as he was led through the corridors to the Copper Room.
He wanted to turn and run, he wanted to head back into the square and wrest control back from La-Ver-Di-Arussah.
He couldn’t. His shame cut too deep, and his mind was woven to listen to his sense of honour. He understood this. He had failed everyone, he deserved his fate. He had no choice but to follow the Vestal Virgins, and they knew it.
The previously concealed door at the rear of the Copper Room had been left open to reveal a rough corridor hewn directly from the rock. A set of steps spiralled down into the darkness, and Wa-Ka-Mo-Do raised the light in his own eyes to see.
Stepping from the Copper Room into the stone corridor, Wa-Ka-Mo-Do felt as if he was leaving his life behind. His last thoughts, oddly enough, were of Rachael. The pale-faced human, his copper girl. She had tried to warn him. Her words came back to him and he halted.
‘Listen!’ he said, urgently. ‘Something’s going to happen in the morning! We need to clear the city.’
‘That’s no longer your concern, Wa-Ka-Mo-Do,’ said one of the women, sweetly.
‘But what about Ell? What happened in Ell?’
‘Resume walking, Wa-Ka-Mo-Do,’ said another, ‘and do so in silence.’
They didn’t have that power over him, the ability to command him to cease speaking, but Wa-Ka-Mo-Do was silent nonetheless. There was nothing to say.
Deeper and deeper they descended beneath the city. Ancient tunnels branched off from the corridor, most of them half collapsed with disuse, and Wa-Ka-Mo-Do remembered the copper mines upon which the prosperity of Sangrel was built.
They walked for some time through empty rock long stripped of metal, the perfect figures of the three women barely visible before him. They passed out under the lake, the waters dripping down from above.
Finally, they began to ascend.
‘Almost there,’ said one of the women, turning and smiling back at him, and Wa-Ka-Mo-Do felt his current wax and wane despite himself.
They reached a spiralling set of steps, cut in the stone, and ascended it. Wa-Ka-Mo-Do found himself in a small room, decorated in jade. There was a chair set in the centre, a small forge burning to the side.
‘Sit down, Wa-Ka-Mo-Do,’ said one of the women.
His body did as it was ordered.
One appeared at his side.
‘Your arm is damaged,’ she said, and he felt an electric thrill as she touched him at the shoulder. She did something, and he felt the loss of weight as the arm was removed. He forced himself to remain calm, to ignore the fear clamouring inside him. He was still a warrior.
‘This was well made,’ said the woman who examined his arm. ‘Yet I’m sure I can improve upon it.’
To his confusion, she began to carefully pull out the twisted, melted wire of the electromuscle. He flinched as the other two women knelt by him and began to unship his panelling. They set to work on his body, twisting and tweaking and shaping him. Fixing him and repairing him. He felt a sense of pleasure and well-being building up, all the while being pushed back by the terror that had lodged itself deep inside.
‘Is this nice?’ said one of the women.
‘Do we not tune and improve you?’
Their voices were so sweet. He almost began to relax.
‘A healthy body will respond so much better to punishment.’
The current surged through him, sending a crackling charge into the fingers of one of the women who knelt at his feet.
‘Naughty,’ she said, smiling patiently. ‘Later. Relax for the moment. Enjoy the servicing! This will be the last time you will feel such pleasure.’
‘Ever.’
The three of them smiled at him so kindly, and Wa-Ka-Mo-Do felt a surge of horrified dread sing throughout his body.
He sat in the Jade Room, three beautiful women working on his body, on his electromuscles, on his metal skeleton, until it was morning.
Then, fully repaired, he was led through ornamented rooms and out into the sunlit dawn.
The air brushed his exposed electromuscle.
‘No panelling,’ said one of the women. ‘You won’t need it.’
The Temple of Eternity was mostly open to the elements. White marble pillars separated the area into different rooms, some of them containing pitchers and vases, some of them containing robot bodies, frozen in positions of agony. Wa-Ka-Mo-Do turned away from them.
He was taken, electromuscle naked to the world, to a small terrace overlooking Lake Ochoa. Across the dark waters he saw the city of Sangrel, smoke still rising into the morning air. Apart from that, everything seemed so peaceful.
Then he saw what awaited him.
A small forge was set in the middle of the terrace, and by it lay a new body, warming in the rays of the rising sun. A thick body made of cast iron and lead.
‘Are you frightened, Wa-Ka-Mo-Do?’
‘Yes,’ he answered, truthfully.