Olam wasn’t thinking clearly that night; it took a while for his brain to process all the information: the train was heading for Turing City; and those people being shot were Turing Citizens.
Turing Citizens?
And then he had it.
They were doing it. They were really doing it. They were really going to war on Turing City State.
The thin wind carried the crack of rifles through the darkness, the night moon shone down on the green wall of the train, and Olam and the rest of the infantry ran even faster across the plain.
Eleanor climbed into the cabin of the reaction engine and looked around its cream-painted interior with interest. So many dials, so many levers. She had never seen anything so technically advanced. It made her proud to be an Artemisian.
‘Who are you? By what right do you stop this train?’ The driver of the train came forward in order to block Eleanor moving further into the cabin. She was a well-built woman, she obviously had some skill with metal. She wore little panelling, as was the current fashion amongst the intelligentsia of Artemis City. A band of metal around her chest, a band from her waist to her thighs. All the rest was bare machinery and electromuscle. The mechanism of her fine body was shown off to alclass="underline" the elegantly knitted muscle that ran smoothly over her metal bones. Eleanor was left in no doubt; this robot was a thing of craft and beauty.
‘Who am I? My name is Eleanor, infantryrobot. Who are you?’
‘Dorore.’
‘Ah,’ said Eleanor, ‘now I understand. A goldenmind. Am I right?’
‘Yes,’ replied Dorore, with obvious pride. ‘My mind was twisted from gold taken from Bethe, just after the invasion. Those in the making rooms say my mind is patterned on those of the thinkers of Bethe and Segre and Stark.’
‘And your mind has earned you a place on the reaction project. As a train driver, no less.’ Eleanor was impressed, despite herself. Once more she looked around the controls of the cabin. The needles on the dials before her were all neatly centred; the reaction chamber was humming at the correct frequency, the generated current smooth and powerfuclass="underline" she could feel it.
Dorore was craning to peer past Eleanor, trying to look out of the open door.
‘What’s going on out there?’ she demanded. Like Eleanor, she could hear the sound of the troops outside in the night, moving moving back and forth, swinging open the access hatches as they boarded the train. Eleanor moved to one side to let the driver past. Dorore dropped down the ladder into the night beyond. Eleanor heard her shouting out orders into the dark.
‘Hey! Stop that! Get off of there!’
Nobody answered.
‘Hey! I’m talking to you! What are you doing with my train?’
A quiet voice carried through the night. ‘Not your train. Not your train at all.’
Eleanor recognized Kavan’s voice, and she felt a spark of annoyance. Why was he here? Didn’t he trust her? Did he think she was not capable of handling this situation? She quickly climbed down from the cab to find Kavan speaking to Dorore in soft, compassionless tones.
‘Why should my troops not do this?’ he was asking. ‘They are doing what is necessary for the coming battle. Do you think that you know better? Do you think that having a golden mind makes you special? No, I don’t think so. Only Artemis is special.’
To Eleanor’s surprise, Dorore found the courage to answer Kavan.
‘I’m not saying that. But why have you stopped me? Let me go on my way! I too work for Artemis!’
The grey soldier spoke contemptuously.
‘Doing what? Driving an engine back and forth? There is gold on your wrists, there is a gold band around your waist. You have gold in your mind, and you choose to advertise the fact, golden-mind. Is that why they picked you to drive this engine?’
Dorore hesitated.
‘Yes,’ she said, eventually. ‘And why not? It’s not easy to control. I bake the control rods myself. I maintain the primary coolant loop, I keep the temperature constant…’
‘What would happen if you didn’t?’
She had missed the meaning in his words, Eleanor knew, eager as she was to impress upon him the importance of her job.
‘The train would run slow!’ said Dorore. ‘But when I get it right
… Look at the length of this train! Four and a half miles of Artemisian beauty. It takes a reaction engine to pull this much mass. This train is an expression of Artemis power!’
She now had the first inkling that she was saying the wrong thing. Her words, carried by the cold wind, seemed to chill the mood of the half-seen robot.
‘Artemis has no need to express its power. Artemis merely is.’
‘I know that,’ she hurriedly replied, ‘that’s not what I meant. I meant to say this train better serves Artemis…’
‘No, I don’t think so. Four or eight or sixteen diesel trains would carry the load just as well, and at far less cost to time and resources.’
‘That’s not true…’
‘This is just an expensive toy. A way for goldenminds to amuse themselves and justify their existence. There is too much of this sort of thing in Artemis of late. The state is losing its purpose.’
‘No!’
The grey robot was silent. Despite the constant activity around them, it was strangely calm on the plain. The night stars billowed above them, like the highlights on a foil sail cracking in the wind. Eleanor could see the silhouettes of robots as they climbed into the interior of the engine. She imagined them running their coarse hands over the marvels of the pressurized water reactor.
‘What are they doing?’ asked Dorore in alarm.
‘They are rigging it to explode.’
Dorore laughed. Rather, forced herself to laugh. It was a gesture of defiance. If anything, it seemed to impress the grey robot.
‘You don’t understand, do you?’ she said. ‘That’s a PWR, you can’t make it explode! It’s all to do with the negative temperature coefficient of reactivity. As the reactor gets too hot, the water becomes less dense and the chain reaction slows down. You can’t have a runaway explosion like you got on the old reactors. Besides which, I baked the control rods myself. They don’t contain enough fissile uranium to sustain a critical chain reaction!’
‘They will do, goldenmind.’
And at that Kavan turned and made his way to the engine to direct operations, leaving Eleanor and Dorore standing together in the empty night, on the empty plain, the cold breeze whistling through their bodies.
Dorore turned to Eleanor, desperate for her to understand.
‘Tell him,’ she said. ‘Tell him this train is needed back in Artemis City. My crew will be waiting for me. Pinza, Alycidon and Tulyar…’
Eleanor said nothing. Behind Dorore, the grey robots were withdrawing from the innards of the reaction train. The panels and hatches were being carefully locked back into place.
Kavan returned. ‘Okay, goldenmind, it’s ready. You can get back on board.’
It took a moment for Dorore to register what he meant.
‘Back on board the engine? But it’s rigged to explode!’
‘Yes. And we need someone to drive it to its destination.’
‘What? But you can’t mean… It will explode! I’ll be killed!’
‘Yes. But this way you will best serve Artemis.’
‘Set one of your own troops to drive it!’
‘They would not know how. There is the pressure to keep constant, the primary coolant loop to maintain…’
Dorore paused, registering his tone. ‘You’re being sarcastic.’
‘No. Besides which, my troops are too valuable to waste. Their training and experience offers Artemis much. What can you offer?’
‘I am a goldenmind!’
And at that there was another of those cold silences. And then.. .
‘No. There is no goldenmind, there is no golden body. The wire is not special, only the pattern that is twisted there. There is too much of this thinking back in Artemis City. Some day I may turn my attention there.’