‘I can… I can… do it…’
He saw the look in their eyes, just for a moment. They concealed it immediately.
‘You… didn’t, didn’t… think… I could!’ A surge of triumph, so weak against the pain.
‘Not at all. We’re just surprised it took you so long.’
‘Liars!’
‘And now, Wa-Ka-Mo-Do, it is time for you to…’
Her voice trailed away. She was gazing up into the sky. All three of them were. Gazing at something behind him, something out towards Sangrel. Wa-Ka-Mo-Do remembered Rachael’s words…
Tomorrow morning. When we are far enough away…
Painfully, agonizingly, Wa-Ka-Mo-Do turned to follow the gaze of the Vestal Virgins. A small star was falling, it crackled with lightning.
‘What it is it?’ said one of the women.
‘It’s a… human device,’ replied Wa-Ka-Mo-Do. ‘The Emperor has
… betrayed you, too.’
The electric star fell, and as it did so a thin line of lightning flickered down to the city. It felt its way this way and that around the broken-roofed ruins of the Emperor’s Palace, there at the top of the city. Then another strand of lightning flickered forth, and another. And then the air was filled with dancing lines, an electric rain storm of brilliant threads. They felt their way from the city, out across the lake, heading to the mound.
Wa-Ka-Mo-Do and the women watched as the threads of light climbed up the Mound of Eternity, seeking them out, touching the terrace, looking for something.
‘Look how it seeks my hand,’ said one of the Vestal Virgins, and she waved her arm this way and that, the strand of lightning following her movement.
‘And me,’ said another. ‘Look it touches my foot.’
She tilted back her head and let off such a lovely sound that it took Wa-Ka-Mo-Do a moment to realize that she was screaming.
‘What is it?’ called her sisters, and the threads touched them and they too screamed.
More lightning was dancing in now; it surrounded them like bars. The Vestal Virgins tried to run, tried to dodge. To no avail. The threads touched their hands, their feet. The air was filled with their cries of pain.
The electric threads found Wa-Ka-Mo-Do and he felt a muted ache, almost lost against the background of agony that already filled his shell.
‘But it’s not so bad…’ he said.
The Vestal Virgins didn’t seem to notice. One came to Wa-Ka-Mo-Do, her hands held out in supplication. He took them in his own and watched as the electric threads found their way into her mind.
He looked into her eyes as they glowed stronger and stronger, there was a buzzing thump and her mind exploded. The air was filled with white light. Two more thumps as her sisters died in the same way.
Now the threads felt their way to Wa-Ka-Mo-Do’s head and…
Spoole
This is how Kavan had done it, thought Spoole. He hadn’t so much commanded events as ridden them. The revelation had been a long time coming, but now he understood.
Spoole wasn’t like Kavan: he had been woven to lead. He saw Artemis as something to be shaped and guided, something to be directed towards specific goals. Kavan hadn’t been made that way. It had long been rumoured that he was made in Segre, that his mother had followed Nyro’s pattern when she had made his mind. Finally, Spoole understood what that meant. Unlike Spoole, who sought to lead, Kavan saw Nyro’s way, and he followed that path. It was a subtle distinction, but an important one. And now Spoole had learned to apply it.
As Spoole walked along the railway lines, following Nyro’s way, heading towards the Centre City, the word spread. Robots who had wondered at the human’s arrival here in Artemis. Robots who distrusted the motives of the Generals, robots who believed that all metal should be directed in Nyro’s way. Robots looking for a leader to express their feelings.
Spoole and his growing army left the area of the marshalling yards. They began to walk the long mile by the cable walks, down the corridor of steel cable left piled by the sides of the road.
There was a rhythm developing to their tread. Faint for the moment, but growing.
Stamp, stamp, stamp.
Yellow-painted workers emerged from the buildings to join him.
Together, they marched on.
Ka seemed fixed to the horizon. No matter how far Wa-Ka-Mo-Do walked, it remained dark and ugly in the distance. The sea wind blew thick ribbons of smoke inland. At night, their undersides were lit red with the burning fires.
All the while he felt the bitterness of defeat, the burning shame that was so great he almost welcomed the perpetual agony the Vestal Virgins had woven into his body.
Almost welcomed. The pain was too great. Every footstep sent a bolt of pain up through his legs to jar his body, a variation in the static agony that filled his shell, a counterpoint to the anguish that filled his mind.
He had failed completely. Failed the Emperor, failed himself, failed the robots of Sangrel.
Nearly every one of them was dead.
He had struggled through the streets and lanes of the city, painfully dragging his new body along, heaving his leaden prison past robots whose minds had been blown, but whose bodies remained untouched. Robots lay on the ground or sat on ledges. They collapsed forward, supporting each other in pyramids, they leaned back against walls. There was no movement, but there was a sense of motion about the scene, of activity interrupted. Wa-Ka-Mo-Do almost expected them to come to life at any moment, to resume their angry insurrection, to pick up the knives and clubs that had fallen from their lifeless hands and resume their attack on the upper city.
It wouldn’t happen. The life had gone from their eyes. Sangrel, poor, twisted, abused Sangrel, was at last at peace, lit by the yellow summer sun.
The only sound came from above, the plaintive bleating of animals in the copper market. What strange device had the humans used, to kill robots and leave organic life untouched?
Just how powerful were they? Powerful enough to have written the Book of Robots? Undoubtedly.
For a moment, just a moment, he had an understanding of the Emperor’s position. What else could the Emperor have done in the face of such force? What else could he have done but negotiated and bought a few months’ grace whilst he saved face and frantically sought some way of fighting this powerful foe?
But then Wa-Ka-Mo-Do moved that heavy body and the searing agony of current shorted across his back, and he was lost in pain once more.
It took him all morning to drag himself up to the Copper Market, pushing aside fallen bodies, crunching on the glass and broken tiles that littered the streets. He found the organic animals, and, not knowing what else to do, he unlocked their cages. He watched as the great beasts walked out amongst the fallen bodies, blowing hard from their noses, nudging at the metal remains of their keepers.
Wa-Ka-Mo-Do released all the creatures he could find, a heavy fatigue building within him; then he stopped, exhausted. It took so long to build up the lifeforce to move this leaden body, and then it was expended in so little time. He looked around the broken market place as he rested; saw the stalls that had collapsed when their owners had fallen onto them. Their wares were strewn on the floor, slicked in oil and grease. Animals clattered over scattered metal plates, they knocked over displays, skittering away at the sound of ringing bells dying on the ground behind them.
He heard a noise and slowly turned around. Something metal ran from the market place.