‘Artemis! Where are the Guards?’ He saw the answer almost straight away, saw the dead and damaged bodies that littered the space close to the station. All caught in the blast. Karel came to a decision. ‘This way,’ he shouted. ‘We’ll loop down through the galleries and back up around the parliament.’
She couldn’t hear him, of course. He pointed. Reluctantly she followed. He was taking her away from their son.
They began to run again, this time heading south towards the shops and galleries.
‘The rest of the City Guard will be coming,’ he told himself.
‘Run!’ yelled Doe Capaldi. ‘Run! Get into the city, or the City Guard will pick us off out here on the plain!’
All down the line came the sound of leaders calling their troops to action. Olam ran, his electromuscles throbbing with pain, his stride matched perfectly to the distance between the concrete sleepers. That cold, sharp wind that had started in the night was blowing him up the valley, over white sleepers, between the pair of silver rails that he was following. Black smoke ahead of him and grey infantry around him, their feet pounding on concrete as they rushed on and on and on, towards Turing City. He could hear gunfire already; he gripped his rifle tighter, eager to be part of the attack. That was the order: rape and kill. Rape and kill.
Olam couldn’t believe how good that sounded. Something had awoken inside him back in the arena. Something that had long lain dormant. Now it sharpened its blades and charged its muscles, ready for the fight.
Suddenly the ground beneath the sleepers vanished, and he saw bright green water down there, between the gaps. He stumbled and fell, almost lost his rifle. There was a river down there, water dancing along, and in the middle of the water a long copper worm turned its head up to look at him and then slipped quietly below the water’s surface, leaving Olam wondering if he had imagined the sight. And then someone took hold of him and pulled him upright. Doe Capaldi.
‘Come on, Olam. Run!’
And Olam did just that. Doe Capaldi was helping him? No way. He fixed his gaze on that robot’s back and continued to run, heading towards the wreckage of the station, the broken green body of the train plunged into its very heart, its tail cast out across the valley.
Karel and Susan fled through the milling crowds into the shops and the galleries of central Turing City. Everywhere was confusion. People looked round for the Artemisians, looked for the City Guard without success. Where were they? Rumours were rife.
‘The City Guard have cut them all down on the plain!’ ‘The City Guard were all killed in the railway station!’ ‘They are preparing a counter-offensive up by the fort!’ ‘The Artemisians have taken the fort!’ ‘The residential areas are burning!’ Karel was grateful that Susan’s ears were damaged. If she heard that, she would have lost control completely. As it was, it took all his effort to keep her running in the opposite direction from where Axel lay sleeping.
The situation was like a childhood dream. Everywhere still looked so normaclass="underline" the tall, arching iron galleries with their plate glass windows, the neatly tiled streets that ran through them.
Karel pulled Susan to a rest for a moment by a display of molybdenum ingots in the window of Gros-smith’s, trying to get an understanding of what was going on. Suddenly their situation seemed ridiculous. They were standing on rose porphyry, amidst rose porphyry pillars, looking through leaded glass at some of the most expensive metals on the planet. He was standing in the middle of one of the richest and most powerful states on Shull. Why was everyone panicking? Surely they had nothing to fear, not with the City Guard to protect them?
So where were they? And where were the Artemisians? If there were no City Guard to stop them, they should have made it up to the galleries by now.
Something wasn’t right here, realized Karel. Something wasn’t right, and he couldn’t figure what that was by himself. He looked at his wife as she fiddled with the mechanism of her left ear and he came to a decision. Susan would understand. He needed Susan in working order, right now.
Karel led Susan through the milling crowds to Harman’s, the closest body shop he knew. Susan pulled against him all the way.
‘Aaaaxx***ll,’ she kept phasing, ‘Aaxxellll.’
‘I know,’ said Karel. ‘Susan, listen, I need you to help me.’
Susan didn’t understand what he was saying, but she recognized Harman’s and she realized what he intended. She followed him into the shop without further complaint.
Harman’s was expensive. It used only the very best metals, the finest oils and plastics. The paintwork they produced was on a par with that of Susan’s skill, though invariably more expensive. The staff there were knowledgeable, skilful and, for the moment, absent. They had fled when the panic had gripped Turing City. Only Harman herself remained, a small woman clad in dark iron, a deceptively simple construction.
Karel saw her and began to gabble. ‘My wife, she got caught in the explosion. Her ears, her eyes, her voicebox, they’re all wrecked.’
Harman nodded. ‘Susan always has been a finely built machine,’ she said approvingly. ‘I would have been disappointed if she had not succumbed to a magnetic pulse! Her body is such a delicate creation.’ She seemed to think it a judgement on Karel that he had not himself suffered damage.
‘Come here, Susan,’ she said leading her to the centre of the room. ‘Sit down.’
The shop forge was tiny, but very, very hot. The instruments and tools that Harman used were small and delicate. Karel watched as she took a sliver of steel from a tray and set about opening up one of Susan’s ears, then carefully sliding the mechanism there from his wife’s skull. He saw the delicate blue wire of her brain beyond and turned away in embarrassment. He went to the window of the shop, looking out into the square beyond, his gyros spinning.
The robots out there still milled about without any sense of order. Clearly, no one yet knew what was happening. He scanned the crowd: all he could see were Turing Citizens. No City Guard, no Artemisians. What was happening? Why was there no fighting?
Behind him, he could hear Harman singing softly to herself as she adjusted his wife’s ears.
‘How long will this take?’ he called to her.
‘As long as it takes,’ said Harman. ‘I stay here with you, Karel. I leave when you leave.’
‘Where is the City Guard?’ shouted Karel in frustration.
‘I imagine they are wherever the Artemisians are,’ said Harman calmly. ‘Please don’t shout. Your wife’s ears are very sensitive at the moment. You will hurt her.’
‘Sorry.’
‘Panic and haste will lead us nowhere, Karel. I was in Stark when that city fell. The thing to do is to keep one’s head, to ensure that one has a fully functioning body and a clear sense of purpose.’ She reached for a silver pick. ‘I saw too many robots in Stark who ran half-panelled out into the streets, straight into the guns of the enemy.’
Karel knew she was right, but it was hard to keep calm. Out in the square the crowd seemed to have reached some consensus. They were fleeing south, towards the old town and the foundries.
‘Something is happening out there…’ began Karel.
‘Stay calm, Karel,’ warned Harman, her hand on his wife’s chin as she tweaked at something. ‘Let the foolish ones take the bullets for us.’
The crowd of Turing Citizens was thinning, draining away between the arcades and galleries at the south end of the square. Karel found himself straining to look north, waiting to see the grey shapes of Artemisian infantry. Nothing.
‘I don’t need a work of art. Just get her talking again!’
‘That’s what I’m doing,’ said Harman, equably. ‘There, all done. Susan, can you put yourself back together whilst I collect a few things?’
Karel turned to see his wife sliding her mouth back into place.