The crowd was silent, ears were turned up to listen.
‘Nyro herself said it,’ said Spoole, ‘that there is no mind, there is just metal. I realized over the past few weeks that maybe my mind wasn’t woven as true as I once believed. Perhaps my mother was too concerned with this metal -’ he tapped his hand against his body, ‘- to the detriment of Artemis itself. Perhaps I wasn’t the only one to think that way.’
He looked again at the surviving Generals.
Silence. Nothing but the hiss of the breeze through metal seams.
‘Not perhaps,’ Spoole corrected himself. ‘There is no doubt. The leadership of Artemis has been poor lately, there is no denying it.’
Sandale’s eyes flashed, but he remained quiet. How could he do otherwise, when shouts of agreement came from the crowd? Sandale lowered his head.
‘But all this changes today. There can be no longer any doubt who the true leader of Artemis is. Bring him forward now. Bring forward Kavan!’
The shout went out; heads turned this way and that. And they focussed on the dusty, insignificant infantryrobot who made his way towards Spoole. An electric surge ran through the crowd as they strained to see Kavan, the hero, the feared, the robot who had conquered all of Shull.
Robots cleared a path as he made his way forward, flanked by a blue engineer and a silver Scout. The three of them came to a halt before Spoole. Spoole looked the infantryrobot up and down.
‘Kavan,’ he said. ‘What would you have us do now?’
The silence lengthened. And then Kavan spoke.
‘Seek another leader.’
A hum of current rippled through the robots.
‘But… but why?’
Kavan was matter of fact.
‘Because our time has passed. Look at this place, look at that ship, lying broken over there. Our minds are not woven for these times.’
‘Then who?’ demanded Sandale, suddenly bold.
‘I don’t know,’ said Kavan, fixing the General with a stare. ‘Maybe someone like Ada here, someone who understands machinery.’
‘Not me!’ laughed the blue engineer.
‘No,’ agreed Kavan. ‘Not you. Maybe you could understand what makes this craft work, but that wouldn’t mean you could understand the minds of those who have built it. We need a new leader. Someone whose mind was not fixed at birth. Someone who will look at this new situation in which we find ourselves and will be able to respond to it in a new way, not in a pattern laid down by his mother, years ago.’
‘Does such a person exist?’
‘If they do, they will present themselves.’
Spoole was aware of the movement from the side. He saw two robots pushing their way forward. One wore the body of an infantry-robot, but awkwardly, as if he wasn’t really used to it. The other wore an oversized body of lead and iron, a badly designed thing that was surely hurting the robot inside. The infantryrobot spoke.
‘Who are you?’ asked Spoole.
The robot looked at Spoole. ‘Someone who was listening to what you said. Someone whose mind was not fixed at birth. Someone who has walked this continent from top to bottom and has finished his journey with more questions than when he started. Someone who has heard the story of Eric and the Mountain, and now knows that he must lead.’
‘That was the philosophy of Turing City,’ said Kavan. ‘This robot is from Turing City. I think he’s right. The Turing Citizen should be your new leader.’’
‘Turing City is no more,’ said Karel. ‘And neither is Artemis. All that is left is metal. It’s up to us how we twist it now.’
‘You would suggest a Tokvah tells us how to twist metal?’ said Sandale, the faintest edge of disgust in his voice.
‘My mind wasn’t made in Artemis, either,’ said Kavan. ‘And yet you would allow me to lead you. These two robots are responsible for the metal mesh we all carry. If not for them, then there would be no Artemis today. We would all be dead, our minds destroyed by the electric bomb. So yes, Sandale. I say let’s listen to Karel when he tells us how to twist metal.’
‘But how do we twist it?’ asked Spoole.
Karel looked at the heavy lead robot for support.
‘I don’t know,’ he began. ‘… yet. But Kavan knows part of the answer, he will know how to make robots that will fight. He will command our troops and direct them against the enemy, when they return. This engineer will know another part, robots that can take the animal’s technology and twist it to our own ends. But there is more than that.’
‘What more could there be?’ demanded Sandale.
‘I don’t know,’ replied Karel. ‘And that’s it. None of us know what else there is. I don’t think we understand this world, I don’t think we see it as it really is. We caught a hint of that at the top of Shull, didn’t we, Kavan?’
Kavan’s eyes flared just a little at that, but he said nothing.
Karel looked at the leaden robot standing at his side.
‘Melt and I have travelled the length and breadth of this continent, and we have seen and heard fragments of other truths that are not woven directly into the mind.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean stories that are passed orally from robot to robot, stories that have taken on a life of their own, and avoided the censor of whatever philosophy has been adopted by the state that the mother belongs to. There are other ways for robots to build bodies than this one.’
He held his arms wide. ‘I’ve even met one such robot.’
Although they spoke quietly, their words were relayed out through the surrounding crowds. Electronic voices rose and fell as the messages reached the edges of the crowd.
Karel raised his voice.
‘This world isn’t what we’ve made ourselves believe it is,’ he called. ‘If we are to make it our own, we need to understand it. We need to see the truth about ourselves. We take so much for granted. Minds. The night moon. All of these things. If we do not write our own stories, then these animals will write them for us! They may already have done so! I saw the warning written at the top of Shull. So did Kavan. The Story of Eric and the Mountain.’
‘The Story of Eric and the Mountain?’ said Kavan.
‘Melt here knows it! He told it to me, and I think I understand what it means. Not just the Story itself, but all stories. Maybe even the Book of Robots.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Think of this. Imagine, years ago, there were robots living here on Penrose who saw the truth.’
‘What truth?’
‘I don’t know! Maybe a truth that was to be hidden from us. Maybe a truth that someone or something was trying to hide from us. Someone or something much, much more powerful than us.’
‘Like the humans?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe. But I don’t think so. I think there is a deeper truth at work here. Maybe one that the robots of the past understood a little of, one they wove into the minds of their children. But what of all the other children? How would they let them know?’
‘By stories,’ said Ada. ‘I see. That’s so clever, two ways for information to pass on.’ Her eyes shone as she contemplated the thought. ‘Hard wired, and a way of modifying data.’
‘The stories are a message to us from our past,’ repeated Karel. ‘We need to understand them!’
He was interrupted by a commotion in the crowd. A robot was pushing its way forward.
‘Karel! Karel!’
Spoole recognized the voice. So did Karel. They both turned. Yet another infantryrobot was running towards them, and Spoole reflected how the most ordinary body in Artemis had proven to be the most influential. Karel was obviously not thinking such thoughts. His eyes glowed in wonder at the sight of the approaching woman.
‘Susan,’ he said.
‘Karel!’
‘This is your husband?’ said Spoole, but they weren’t listening to him, and why should they?
Susan was humming with electricity. The current shone around her, eclipsing even the glow that poured forth from Karel’s body. To robot eyes, it was as if they were surrounded by two haloes. The two robots approached each other and a hum of feedback escaped from both their mouths, so perfectly were they in phase with each other.