The three women laughed.
‘Not sufficiently, I suspect,’ said one. ‘Otherwise your fear would have overridden your compulsion to obey. You would be running already.’
‘I deserve my punishment,’ said Wa-Ka-Mo-Do.
‘You do. You realize, Wa-Ka-Mo-Do, that the Emperor hoped you would disobey his orders? He thought that one of the Eleven would fight back against the humans?’
‘No…’
‘Yes, Wa-Ka-Mo-Do. Don’t you see that that way he could disown your actions, even though he was secretly proud of you?’
Wa-Ka-Mo-Do could see it.
‘Or you could have obeyed his orders fully, and then the Emperor would have lost no face to the animals.’
‘But instead you adopted this weak compromise. This half and half action that was suitable to no one. You neither fully rebelled nor fully obeyed. You truly have failed, Wa-Ka-Mo-Do.’
For the first time, Wa-Ka-Mo-Do saw it was true. He had failed. By the standards of the Empire, but worse, by his own standards.
One of the Vestal Virgins raised her voice.
‘Let it be known that the Emperor personally has judged this to be a suitable punishment for your failure.’
‘And the Emperor has a fine judgement in these matters.’
‘And your failure was spectacular.’
‘Now, stand by the body.’
He did so. Those three beautiful women moved around him, their delicate fingers picking away at Wa-Ka-Mo-Do’s frame, unhooking the electromuscles they had so recently repaired and made whole, pulling out the rods of his skeleton, laying him back into the new leaden body, fitting the long electromuscles into place in his new housing. He watched in fascinated horror as first his legs, and then his hips, and then his left arm was hooked into place in that terrifying shell.
‘Move your right arm this way a little.’
He obeyed, and then he felt that too being unhooked.
‘It’s a beautiful morning,’ said one.
‘They say that, even when facing death, a robot should still take the time to appreciate beauty. Are you doing that, Wa-Ka-Mo-Do?’
‘Am I going to die?’ he asked.
‘We all die,’ they laughed. ‘But hopefully not for a long time yet. The Emperor wishes you to endure your punishment for many years.’
They went to work on his neck and head, carefully pulling away the rods and panelling of the skull, peeling away metal until they held his mind and his coil, his eyes, voicebox and ears in their hands. They turned his eyes this way and that, showing him what they had done, and then laid him back so he was facing the blue sky, and the cold, heavy feel of this new body made its way up through his coil.
Then they tilted his head a little, so he could watch as they took all the metal remaining from his former body, all the metal and panelling that he had carefully formed and bent and knitted over his lifetime and they dropped it onto the little forge to melt before him. Scarlet paint turned black and flaked away.
Wa-Ka-Mo-Do felt some connection with his past sever, and bitterness overwhelmed him. It was about all he had left.
‘The Emperor is a traitor,’ he said. ‘He has sold the Empire to the humans.’
‘The Emperor can never be a traitor,’ said one of the women, in the most delightful voice, ‘for the Emperor’s will is the Empire.’
The words were spoken softly in his ear, and he wondered at how robots could be so fair but so cruel.
And yet so far he had felt no pain. They worked the metal of his body apart so gently and expertly that he had felt the wire stir within him. But no! That mechanism was gone, it was melting on the hot coal of the forge.
‘The Emperor has sold his subjects,’ said Wa-Ka-Mo-Do. ‘He has sold his land and his livestock. And so the Empire is no more.’
‘Not so long as the Emperor’s subjects do as the Emperor directs,’ said one of the women, kneeling down beside him. ‘And now, it is time for the punishment.’
Wa-Ka-Mo-Do watched as she took a pot of solder from the top of the forge and laid it on the ground next to him. She dipped a spatula in the pot and then applied it to something just beyond his vision. His right arm erupted with fire. The electromuscle, the connections that ran through his coil to his mind, all of them were singing to near overload with the heat and the current between the iron of the body and the metal of his electromuscle. The pain was incredible.
‘Do you have anything to say, Wa-Ka-Mo-Do?’ asked one.
He forced himself to speak. He was one of the Eleven, he would salvage what little dignity he could.
‘The Emperor is a traitor…’ he repeated.
‘You say that now, Wa-Ka-Mo-Do, yet the punishment has only just begun. Come, let us fix the other arm and then we shall see if you still feel the same way.’
The surge of current and heat erupted in his left arm. It collided with the pain from the right arm at his coil.
‘And now how do you feel, Wa-Ka-Mo-Do?’
‘Traitor…’ he managed.
‘Your voicebox is crackling with static after just two arms. We still have the rest of your body to work upon.’
The women worked on as the sun came up, and the pain rose and rose, passing each supposed climax, until his body was fixed in place. Nearly all of his body. For there was one final act.
‘Finally, Wa-Ka-Mo-Do, the coil. You do understand what we are about to do?’
A beautiful face appeared before Wa-Ka-Mo-Do, blocking the sun’s rays for just a moment. The metal of her face was bent so smoothly. For the first time, Wa-Ka-Mo-Do noticed the fine holes that punctured the mask, tracing the shape of mouth and eyes. So fine. And behind them, the faintest glow of blue twisted metal. He could look directly at her mind. Such a twisted thing. How could a length of metal rejoice in such cruelty? What did cruelty mean? How could metal be cruel?
A ceramic pot was held before his eyes.
‘This is a mixture of platinum and gold and iron. Some copper and silver. Do you recognize the mix? This is the same alloy as your mind is twisted from. We will mix this with your coil, splay it out and flatten it against the metal of this body. The two metals will become one. To try and prise your mind free would be to break your coil. You will be trapped in there forever. Do you understand?’
Wa-Ka-Mo-Do struggled to speak. His words were fighting against a static of pain.
‘Traitor…’
‘I think you understand.’
The face and ceramic pot withdrew. Suddenly, his coil, his mind, his body were on fire. The pain was unbelievable: nothing he had ever before endured had been like this.
And it would never cease, for the rest of his life.
Then came the final act. The three women had set crucibles of lead to melt. They came forward and stood over him, tilted the heavy bowls, and he watched as the metal, silver-grey and bubbling, spilled over the edge and poured into his body. And this time he couldn’t hold it back any longer. An electronic squeal sounded from his voicebox. The Vestal Virgins looked at each other in satisfaction.
They left him. He gazed unseeing at the sun as it rose towards noon. The lead in his body was cooling, but the pain remained trapped there with him.
He saw movement. The Vestal Virgins returned.
‘Wa-Ka-Mo-Do,’ said the women in unison. ‘Stand up.’
‘I can’t,’ he said, his voicebox buzzing.
They laughed.
‘What, Wa-Ka-Mo-Do the great warrior of Ekrano, defeated by this body?’ taunted one.
‘I have seen women with much less lifeforce stand up in much heavier suits. I have put them there myself,’ said another.
‘But we know that women can withstand more pain than men.’ said the third.
Wa-Ka-Mo-Do moved his arms. So heavy, each movement was agony.
‘Come on Wa-Ka-Mo-Do, great warrior of Ko. Try harder!’
He flexed his arms again. So heavy!
‘Is that all he can do? The robots of the Silent City fare much better. But they have strength in their minds…’
The pain threatened to short out his mind, still he forced himself onwards. Flexed his legs. Pushed himself onto his side, with great, heavy scraping movements. He held his balance for a moment, then he rolled forward heavily onto his front. The movement jarred, sent more pain surging through him. He felt the cooling lead shifting around him, thundering agony through his body, lances of fire and surging current. Slowly, inch by agonizing inch, he forced himself to his feet.