Doe Capaldi flicked the snake forward… Olam snatched it from the air. His right arm went numb as the snake fired off its inductor units. The tall robot flipped Olam onto his front, jumped forward and knelt on his back. Olam saw a whale-metal arm scrabbling for another snake just out of reach.
‘You’ll never make it in Artemis,’ shouted Olam. ‘You’ll never be able to make yourself subservient.’
‘I’ll do whatever it takes.’ Doe Capaldi snatched again at the snake. Olam struggled harder, to no avail. His opponent was just too strong. All he could do now was taunt him.
‘They’ll strip that whale metal from your body…’
‘I’ll still have my mind.’
‘They already have you fighting on the arena floor, just like a slave. What will they have you doing next?’
‘Whatever it takes. Here we go…’
Olam braced himself, waiting for the flash and the subsequent numb sensation as the snake fired. And he waited. And then the tension in his arms and back ebbed away. He forced himself up, sending Doe Capaldi tumbling to the ground next to him, a silver loop wrapped around the tall robot’s neck.
A man dressed in a copper skin shook his fist in the air. ‘I got that aristocratic Garo for you. Now finish him!’ He gave Doe Capaldi a kick for good measure.
Olam staggered to his feet, the magnetic track feeling good beneath him.
‘Tha… Thank you!’ he called.
He turned and looked down at Doe Capaldi, the sudden release of fear turning to hate.
‘Choarh!’ he yelled, kicking at the robot’s side. The whale metal gave a dull thud.
He bent down and began to drag the tall robot south, to the killing zone.
I can kill, he thought to himself with pleasure, the current in his electromuscles singing. I can kill. All those times watching the fighting in this arena, he had often wondered if he could do it himself, when it came down to it. Now he knew for certain. His mind seemed alive with sparks, like when a hammer was brought down on hot metal.
With macabre humour, he sat the tall robot in the middle of the south section of the stadium, sat him up to face the balcony. He could see other robots around about him, each with a silver band around its neck. He leaned close to his captive’s ear.
‘It’s nothing personal,’ he said. He looked deep into Doe Capaldi’s good eye, and then turned back to watch the balcony.
Here came Eleanor now. What was it about her that Olam found so disturbing? She was so plain, so grey, so nondescript. So Artemisian. This was what he was signing up for, he realized. Eleanor was the embodiment of Artemis. Interchangeable. Not so much a robot as the realization of an idea. Did they all really believe, he wondered, or were many of them driven there by circumstance, like Doe Capaldi the aristocrat? Like himself, Olam?
Eleanor spoke.
‘Future Artemisians, you have made your choice and recognized that in Artemis there is a time for mercy and a time to kill.’
She paused to survey the crowd. Olam felt strangely calm. The sun was up and the sky was blue.
Eleanor resumed her speech. ‘But sometimes the merciful should kill, and sometimes the killers should learn mercy. And sometimes Artemis changes its mind, because Artemis has no ego, no pride. Artemis is Artemis.’
Olam felt a lurching in his gyros.
‘Those to the south will be spared. Kill everyone to the north.’
Nobody moved at first.
‘All of them,’ said Eleanor, without heat.
And then Olam saw the grey soldiers returning to the floor of the stadium. He heard the sound of bullets, the ringing of skulls being shattered.
He looked down at Doe Capaldi. Hesitantly, he reached down, took hold of the silver snake and slowly pulled it away from the man’s neck.
Slowly, the tall robot got to his feet. He looked down at Olam. ‘No hard feelings, boy,’ he said. ‘I told you, it’s nothing personal. I would have dragged you to the north. But that would have been a mistake wouldn’t it? We’d both have been dead.‘
Olam didn’t reply, just stared with hatred at the tall robot clad in whale metal, stared at his aristocratic curves. A passing grey soldier caught the look.
‘Hey, no need for that,’ she said with a laugh. ‘We’re all Artemisians now.’
Karel
Axel stood behind Susan, one dark iron hand gripping the exquisitely enamelled powder-blue panel on her thigh. He was staring up at his father, pleading.
‘I still say he is too young to attend the meeting,’ Susan was saying.
‘This is too important for him to miss. He needs to know what’s going on.’
‘He’s only four. He won’t understand. He’ll only be frightened. You know how people exaggerate.’
‘He’ll be just as frightened if we keep him in the dark. I think he should attend, and I’m not going to change my mind.’ Karel give her a bitter look. ‘You should know me that much, Susan.’
And so he had won the argument at least. Susan couldn’t say anything else, not after what she had said last night. And Karel knew it, and Susan knew that Karel knew it.
So they left their apartment and made their way from the smooth stone and metal of the residential district, and down the gangue mounds into the old town.
The oldest part of Turing City was built on a series of descending ledges, a legacy of the great open-cast mine from which their wealth had been dug. Karel and his family walked down steps, over metal walkways that ran from the edge of one ledge to the roof of a building and onto the next ledge down, over bridges that spanned the gaps between the piles of gangue: the waste material left after the metal had been extracted. They made their way along the grey lips of the retaining walls that held back the debris of yellowish stone, part of a growing throng of robots making their way to the parliament arena. It was a bright day, the sun warming their metal skins, the blue of the sky seeming to deepen as one stared into it. Karel wondered if they shared this same blue sky in Wien. Were the robots there taking any comfort in such a glorious day?
The air was filled with the sound of marching metal, the hiss and spark of bodies, the tread of metal feet on metal walkways and concrete paths, as the mass of robots converged on the parliament arena, which lay near the centre of the city. In the distance, to Karel’s right, the rails into the station could be heard singing with the sound of trains bringing to the debate robots from all four corners of Turing City State. From behind came the dying notes of the foundries and mills in the old town being stilled as the robots there left their work. The residential districts were being drained as entire families left their homes to attend. Even up on the rocky outcrop there was a suggestion of stillness over the square shapes of the fort and the silver needle of the watchtower, and Karel wondered if even the City Guard would be leaving their posts to come to the meeting.
‘Daddy?’ Axel stretched the last syllable of the word upwards.
‘Yes, Axel?’
‘Why are the Artemisians going to attack us?’
Susan gazed at him with an I told you so expression.
‘They’re not going to attack us, Axel.’
‘I know. But why would they? Why do people say that they will?’
Karel looked to Susan for support, but she looked away.
‘Well,’ said Karel. ‘I suppose in the end it’s down to basic geology. What have you learned about that?’