‘Or of Mekkan!’ Jasperodus laughed. ‘You assess my situation correctly, at any rate. I may as well come with you, and see what this Gargan has to say. Perhaps I can persuade him of the uselessness of his mission.’
‘By no means, Jasperodus. It is you who will be persuaded.’
‘We shall see. Do we travel far?’
‘It is a fair distance to the project. About four weeks’ journey, on foot. En route we may perhaps call at the estate of Count Viss, who is friendly to our cause.’
‘Count Viss? But I know of him,’ Jasperodus said in puzzlement. ‘Surely he cannot still be alive?’
Despite his earlier disclaimers, the robot was now himself glancing nervously at the sky and seemed not to hear the question. ‘Come, Jasperodus. Let us be on our way before the aircraft return.’
‘As we are to be companions, tell me your name.’
‘I am known as Cricus. We go this way.’
Cricus pointed a lank arm to the north-east. With the sun casting long shadows before them, they set off in silence across the plain.
6
The terrain consisted of low undulating hills. Topping one of these, the two robots stopped to view a great parkland that lay below.
‘There,’ said Cricus, putting a sense of occasion into his words, ‘is the estate of Count Viss.’
Jasperodus, stained with dust after sixteen days of continuous walking, was already taking in the scene, which was pleasing enough to be worth a long, leisurely appraisal. The park had clearly been landscaped by a master artist, who had scattered it with lakes and streams, with spinneys, glades and dells, with grassy banks and wooded knolls, in such a way that as the eye was led from one prospect to another one was at first deceived into thinking the arrangement was all natural and fortuitous. The air of serendipity was scarcely diminished by the buildings that also dotted the parkland, including the stone mansion which Jasperodus presumed was the count’s domicile.
Various robots and machines were also to be seen roaming the estate, but no humans whatsoever. Presumably the count’s human household was small, for Jasperodus saw no farmland or vegetable gardens, though he supposed one of the buildings could be used for intensive food production.
His knowledge of Count Viss was indirect. He knew that his own father, or maker, had worked on the estate for nearly a decade, helping to create the unusual and bizarre robots that were the count’s hobby. He carried a vague memory of the famed eccentric, bestowed on him from his father’s memories at the time of his activation. The picture he was able to recollect was of a rather doddering old gentleman in worn and faded garments, issuing instructions in a dry, genial voice.
Though up to now they had avoided human habitation, Cricus had assured him they would be made welcome here. He interrupted Jasperodus’ thoughts. ‘Earlier you wondered how the old count could still be alive,’ he said. ‘You might also think it odd that a human should favour the Gargan Work. The answer to both questions will now become clear.’
Cricus led Jasperodus down the grassy bank, towards the stone mansion which disappeared for a while behind a screening row of trees.
Their walk through the landscaped park afforded a closer view of some of the robots with which the count had populated his estate. Jasperodus’ attention was first attracted by a huge silver beast clearly modelled on an extinct animal called the giraffe—one of nature’s grotesqueries and therefore recommending itself to Viss as a model to be copied. The immensely long neck reached into the topmost branches of the grove of trees where the robot animal stood. It seemed to be chewing the leaves.
Scrollwork, of the type that covered Jasperodus’ body, also graced the silver body and neck of the beast. Could this mean that he and the creature had the same maker, with scrollwork as his hallmark, Jasperodus wondered? The thought was put out of his mind by the other constructs, products of the count’s imagination and that of his hirelings, that wandered through the glades and open spaces. A huge construction of flailing limbs, like some fantastic reaping machine, proceeded at speed across the grassland. Lilting, dancing forms moved to invisible musical rhythms… the two travellers passed by what at first appeared to be a pair of mating scorpions ten feet long and taller than a man. Facing each other, they retreated and advanced by turns, but whereas a real male scorpion seized the pincers of the female simply to prevent her attacking him, here the signal-like clicking of the pincers possessed by both giant robots appeared to comprise an endless dialogue. What, Jasperodus asked himself, did the conversations consist of? Uncomplicated threat and counter-threat? Or one of those subtle intellectual debates so beloved of the robot mind?
They strolled on, but Jasperodus stopped suddenly when something sprang up from the grass some tens of feet away. It was a twenty-foot-diameter hoop, attached to a central hub by tilted blades which supported it in the air briefly as it spun lazily. A red-glowing strip ran the whole length of the circumference.
‘Do not be alarmed,’ Cricus told him. ‘It is a circumsensory robot. Its single encircling eye gives it constant three hundred and sixty degree vision. One wonders why organic nature never developed such an eye.’
‘No doubt there is a reason,’ Jasperodus said dryly.
‘No doubt.’
The hoop sank back into the grass. ‘We are quite safe here,’ Cricus said in a soothing murmur. ‘Nothing will molest us.’ But he was shortly forced to modify this claim when an androform robot came lurching desperately towards them waving its limbs.
In a desperate, slurred voice, it spoke. ‘Wind me up, good sirs. Please wi-i-i-ind meeee….’
The voice boomed down the sound scale and ground to a halt. The robot, too, halted in mid-stride and was still. Its eyes went out. For a moment it stood balanced on one foot, then rocked and crashed to the ground.
Projecting from its back was a huge key like the key of a child’s cheap clockwork toy.
‘Best to leave it, or it will pester you incessantly,’ Cricus advised mildly. But Jasperodus, already guessing the situation, bent down to apply his hands to the key.
Considerable strength was needed to turn it. There was a loud ratcheting sound. After one complete turn it would move no more, and when he released it a mechanism began to tick. The robot stirred and instantly clambered to its feet. Its eyes glowed once more.
‘Thank you sir. Thank you!’ it said, looking at Jasperodus. Then, in a pitiable quaver, ‘Do you think you could wind me again in five minutes’ time?’
‘Five minutes?’
‘I am clockwork, sir, a spring propels my body and drives a dynamo to power my brain. But it lasts only five minutes, then I must be wound again. Be kind to me, sir. Give me another five minutes of life!’
While he spoke, the remorseless sound of the unwinding spring emanated from the construct’s metal torso. ‘Come, Jasperodus,’ Cricus said. ‘We must go.’
Now they were approaching Count Viss’ mansion, and Jasperodus briefly eyed its architectural features. The old nobleman’s liking for robotic grotesquery was apparently not matched by his taste in buildings. The mansion was no folly, but a solidly-built structure of square stone blocks with a wholly conventional frontage decorated with a few columns and a pedimented portico. Only the belvederes at each corner of the building gave any hint of eccentricity, and they were probably there as viewpoints over the estate.
The broad driveway that ran from the frontage was another matter. It bridged a small lake and then, for no apparent reason, dived underground into a wide-mouthed tunnel, nowhere to reappear.