Everyone was watching now. His staff, the junior robots who had stripped the whale, his guard, sleek in their silver bodies, all listening to his denunciation of this dull grey robot.
‘Cowards,’ the General announced, warming to his theme. ‘But they are cowards not only in war but in victory, too. They creep through a conquered city taking only what their timid nature allows! Whilst other soldiers rip the metal from the population and the wire from the enemy mind, they are content to pick up the few scraps that fall unnoticed to the floor. Look – look at that whale over there! Metal and electromuscle beyond the quality that you now wear, soldier. You stand here speaking to me when you should be over there, replating your body for the glory of Artemis.’
Kavan didn’t move.
‘Come on,’ said Fallan. ‘Why don’t you go and help yourself? I know why. Like Nicolas the Coward, you find yourself granted huge opportunities but fear to accept them.’
General Fallan waved his hand in a final flourish. No one spoke. Only the persistent sound of distant Artemisian robots stamping echoed around the slipway.
Still Kavan said nothing.
‘Well?’ said General Fallan. ‘Don’t you have anything to say before I have you led from here and stripped apart?’
Kavan spoke. Old metal body, scratched grey paint. His voice was quiet.
‘My name is Kavan. I am taking control of this army.’
‘Like Tok you are,’ laughed Fallan. ‘I see what you are now. A half-build renegade! A mind from here, a mind from there. Father’s metal from Stark and mother twisting minds like they do in Bethe, trying to copy the Artemisian model. You have joined up but you don’t really understand the Artemisian philosophy, the Artemisian mind.’
General Fallan tapped his head. ‘This mind was woven according to Nyro’s model from good Artemisian wire. Not like yours, Tokvah. You walk as an Artemisian soldier, but you don’t understand what it means. If you did you would realize that Artemis is not a person, it is a philosophy. You seek to take power for yourself, but that is not the Artemisian way. There is no self in Artemis.’
Kavan waited. And then at last, he spoke.
‘I understand that, Fallan,’ he said. ‘The soldiers here understand that. It is you who have forgotten it. This campaign has been badly managed, this army needs better direction. There is no self in Artemis, there is only Artemis itself. And Artemis is changing its thinking on how the army is led.’
‘And that leader will be you, I take it?’ said Fallan. Eleanor could see that the General was not afraid. He wouldn’t have risen to the top of the army without learning to fight. The General’s body was the superior, his electromuscles were charging. The sound of the stamping increased in volume. Eleanor readied herself to spring.
And then there was the crackle of electricity discharging, and General Fallan slumped to the ground. Eleanor looked around curiously. Kavan hadn’t moved. Neither had she. What was going on?
‘What happened?’ called Fallan. ‘What happened? Ruth! Tell the men to fire. Kill this man!’
But Ruth said nothing. To her surprise, Eleanor saw Ruth stepping forward to speak to Kavan, saw her putting her gun back into its holster as she did so.
‘Ruth?’ shouted Fallan in indignation. ‘Was it you that shot me?’
No one was listening to him. Kavan was right, realized Eleanor. Artemis was ready for a change of leader. Only Fallan didn’t seem to realize that yet…
‘Ruth? What did you do? Have you destroyed my coil? No, you can’t have done, or I wouldn’t be able to see and hear. I can hear the soldiers stamping still. I can hear them celebrating my victory!’
Kavan was talking to Ruth. She reached up and disengaged her breastplate of colourful whaleskin, pulled it off, exposing the bare machinery beneath, and dropped it to the ground. All around him, the other soldiers were doing the same.
Fallan shouted at them to stop, but no one listened to him. Instead Eleanor watched, unbelieving, as two of the grey infantry bent down and began to strip his body. Whale metal panelling was unshipped and thrown to the side. Electromuscle was carefully unhooked and laid on the ground as Fallan called out to the men to stop.
Kavan had taken control of the army. Eleanor looked on as its old leader was disassembled.
Once there were thoughts and there was the world.
The thoughts lived in the heart of the planet, thinking, and the thoughts did not touch the world and the world did not touch the thoughts.
But deep in the heart of the planet metal was heated and cooled. Metal ran in silver streams and metal cooled in silver webs, deep in the heart of the planet. Metal formed patterns, and the thoughts moved over those patterns, unknowing. But the metal formed shapes that took on meaning, and so the thoughts gained a window into the world. They saw rocks and the caves lit by the glow of molten metal.
And so the first eye was born.
Now the thoughts saw the sky and the sun, the two moons and the sea. And the thoughts thought about what they saw.
And as the thoughts thought, the metal churned in the caves, and still the metal formed shapes that took on meaning, and another window was pushed into the world, and through it came the sound of the wind and the sea.
And so the first ear was born.
Now that the thoughts could see and hear, they began to wonder at the order of things. They saw that day followed night, and that calm followed the storm, and that all hot metal must cool. And the thoughts wondered; must it always be so? Was it possible to change things?
Must a rock always stand where it had come to rest? And as the thoughts thought, the metal churned in the caves, and the metal formed shapes that took on meaning and the thoughts found they had moved the rock.
And so the first arm was born.
And then they sought to move another rock, further away, but they could not reach it. So the thoughts strove to reach that rock.
And so the first legs were born.
And they thought of day and night, and warm and cold, and calm and storm, and wondered that everything came in pairs. And so the thoughts built another, like themselves.
And so the first robots were born.
Karel smiled at his son as he finished the recitation.
‘And that’s where robots come from, Axel.’
Axel nodded slowly.
‘How long ago was that, Dad?’
‘We don’t know. Robots didn’t know about time back then.’
Axel was working on his legs. Lengthening them. The electromuscles he had put in place were too powerful for his young mind. Even if he could move them, they would bend the chassis out of true, but Karel let him continue. It was a mistake that every growing boy made: building a body too big, so that there was insufficient life-force from the mind to power it. That strength of life-force would come eventually as the twisted metal of the child’s developing mind continued to form new connections while it folded itself into shape, but in the meantime it did a child good to learn from his mistakes.
Karel looked around the family forge and felt a sense of warm satisfaction at what he had achieved. Karel was well paid for his work: in steel, copper and silver of high purity. Even a little gold. He and Susan could afford a good apartment in a good part of town – four decent-sized rooms with a view that looked into Turing State, beyond the city itself, out over the railway station and the galleries and the old town. In clear weather, one could even make out the coast.