‘Sit down,’ he said. He knelt on the floor before her, took one of her feet in his hands and began to pry the segmented casing away from it.
‘Oh, Karel, thank you!’ She sank back into the seat, electromuscles discharging. The plastic-coated sole of the foot came away, and Karel quickly stripped the segmented steel upper.
‘That feels so nice,’ said Susan.
Karel pulled out the oil bath and dropped the upper into it.
‘You’ve got gangue lodged in here,’ he remarked. ‘Where have you been? Into the old city?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you make it as far as the fort?’
‘Oh, Karel, do the other one too.’
She waved her other foot in his face. He quickly stripped away its covering, then gazed at his wife’s naked feet. Delicate steel bones, shimmering thin electromuscle.
‘You build yourself so well,’ he said.
She gave a relaxed sigh. ‘You’re not so bad yourself.’
He worked on her feet for some time, flexing them, cleaning them, straightening out control rods. He oiled them and slipped the casing back into place.
Then they sat in silence for some time.
‘What are you thinking, Karel?’
Karel looked up into his wife’s eyes.
‘Nothing in particular. Why?’
‘I never know what you’re thinking. Not really. You never let on.’
A distance fell between them.
‘Susan, what’s the matter? Is it the child? It is, isn’t it? Your emotions are all bubbling up, trying to get themselves into order, ready for the making.’
‘Yes! No! Oh, I don’t know. Tell me, Karel, how do you know? All those immigrants. All those people trying to get into Turing City. How do you know they are telling the truth? How do you know that they are who they say they are?’
She leaned forward, her gaze intense, pleading for an answer.
‘How do I know?’ echoed Karel. ‘I don’t. Not really. But that’s not the point. They say that they will act in accordance with Turing City’s philosophy; they promise they will weave their children’s minds in that fashion. What more can we ask of them?’
And for a moment, an image of Banjo Macrodocious leaped into his mind.
‘Supposing they’re all lying?’ said Susan. ‘What if they are just saying that so they can come and live here? Wouldn’t we do the same? If our home had been destroyed and we had nowhere else to go?’
‘I’m sure that some of them are lying, Susan. Listen, they used to need permits to have children in Segre, back when the Artemisian siege was on and metal was short. But, really, they were just adapting a system that had been used for years in the middle countries. In Stark, robots used to have to pass a mechanical competence test before having children. That’s the price that bought their technical excellence. Robots have been leaving Segre and Bethe and Stark for years to come and live here, simply so they could raise their own children. Were we right to let them in? Well, I think so. Look at what happened: those other countries are conquered, and we are still standing.’
Susan stared at him. She didn’t seem convinced.
‘Are you going to work tomorrow?’ she asked.
‘Yes.’
‘What about the parliament? You’ve heard, haven’t you? Kobuk has managed to get a petition together for parliament to be convened.’
‘Everyone has heard, Susan. Of course I’ll be back for that. But listen, we have Wieners now flocking into the western stations, running from Artemis. We can’t just ignore them, we need to get them processed. And there will be more robots coming. Lots more.’
The golden glow in Susan’s eyes deepened. ‘I can’t help thinking that they’re wasting their time,’ she said, ‘that Artemis will get them sooner rather than later.’ She put her hand to her mouth. ‘Listen to me! I’m talking like a traitor. Karel, I don’t think we should have another child.’
‘That’s just the build-up of emotions,’ said Karel soothingly. ‘You were like this the last time, too.’
‘No I wasn’t and you know it. Karel, there is something waiting for me out there, and I don’t know what it is. My mind isn’t right. I don’t know what to think.’
Karel took her hands. ‘Susan, it will be all right. Trust me.’
He gazed at her. She looked away.
‘Susan? Susan! You do trust me, don’t you?’
She couldn’t look at him. She spoke to the floor.
‘Karel,’ she said, in such a little voice. ‘I don’t really know what’s on your mind. I don’t know how it was made. I don’t think anyone does, not even you.’
She pulled her hands away from his, stood up and walked from the room.
Karel remained where he was.
Thinking.
The Cruel Mother
Nyro sat down in the land of Born,
The rain her metal has misted;
And there she has knelt with her own true man,
And a new mind she has twisted.
Smile no so sweet, my Bonnie Babe:
And you smile me so sweet, you’ll smile me dead.
She’s taken out her own little awl
And pulled the metal from her sweet Babe’s head.
She’s lit a fire by the light of the night moon
And there she’s melted her sweet babe in.
As she was going to the forge
She saw a sweet babe in the porch.
Oh, sweet babe, if you were mine
I’d clad you in the metal so fine.
Oh, Mother dear, when I was thine,
You didn’t prove to me so kind.
O cursed mother, this land is full
And it’s here that you will no longer dwell.
O cursed mother, Shull is empty
Go there now, cursed empty shell.
The feeling of fear in the stadium was electric: it was a static charge building up in the jolting, clanking crowd of robots, threatening to earth itself in a runaway crackle of panic.
‘There’s nothing to worry about,’ said the robot next to Olam. ‘They need us because they’re going straight on to attack Turing City: they’ll have to enlist every robot they can.’
Olam eyed the robot with a dislike that was momentarily stronger than the fear that currently ran through him. The robot was tall, his body plated in whale metal. Clearly one of the Wiener aristocracy. The robot possessed an air of certainty that Olam despised.
‘Why would they want to attack Turing City right away?’ asked a nearby robot. She was a pretty thing but damaged, the panel on her upper thigh cracked. Olam could see electromuscle sparking through the break. ‘Surely they would want to pause and rebuild their strength?’ She was confused, trying to make sense of this sudden reversal in her fortunes.
‘No,’ insisted the tall robot. ‘Doe Menloop knows what’s going on. She told me, Kavan’s leading the Artemis forces now.’
‘Who’s Kavan?’ asked the woman with the damaged leg.
‘Kavan is a folk legend amongst the Artemisians. Kavan is the robot outsider who came to Artemis and proved himself more Artemisian than the Artemisians themselves.’ The tall aristocrat explained all this without a trace of condescension. Well, he would, reflected Olam. His sort would force you to work underground for a lifetime on low wages without any hesitation, and yet would be mortified if they thought they had been unintentionally rude to you. ‘A lot of people have been waiting for Kavan to take control of the army. They expect him to march upon Artemis City itself some day.’
Olam felt moved to speak, but at that moment there was a crackle of static, a whistle from the speakers that studded the iron walls of the stadium, and the anxious noise of the gathered robots died away.