‘I thought you didn’t believe in that sort of thing,’ remarked Kavan.
‘I don’t,’ said the prisoner, ‘but-’
‘I think I have heard enough,’ said Kavan. ‘Rumour has settled on this land like rust on untreated iron. If left too long it could weaken even the strongest army. We cannot remain here, counting metal and reading reports, while these stories spread further.’
He turned to Eleanor. ‘Send out the signal. We move out within the hour. We are heading north!’
Kavan marched north.
The temperature had dropped, the rain had turned to snow, the wind had increased in speed. Even the elements seemed to be attempting to slow the Artemisian expansion. Still, Kavan marched on, disregarding the omen of the weather for what it was: mere superstition. Kavan’s army was on the move, heading north with Artemisian efficiency.
Silver Scouts cut along the mountain tops, the blades at their feet and arms slicing the wind in two. They reconnoitred the land ahead, leaving signs indicating the best paths for the advance. Already they had been up to the borders of the North Kingdom, setting traps and devices in place for the coming attack.
Black Storm Troopers marched the trails blazed by the Scouts, smashing aside obstacles and crushing what little resistance to their advance that there was, mostly just a few poor robots who were too slow or weak to run.
Behind them, grey infantryrobots trudged through the rocky valleys, the wind driving snow inside their cold metal bodies. They were guarding the engineers who directed the laying of ballast and the construction of bridges, the blasting of cuttings and the supporting of walls.
And behind them all, trains rumbled along newly laid tracks, tilting and clanking as the freshly laid ballast slipped into position.
Kavan, Eleanor and Wolfgang marched amongst a troop of other infantryrobots. The mountains were slipping away behind them, now they made their way through the empty wind-blasted lands and snow-filled valleys that led to the stone circle of the North Kingdom.
‘Don’t you think we’re stretching ourselves a bit too thin, Kavan?’ asked Eleanor.
‘No. Spoole will send us more troops as long as we keep moving north. He can’t be seen to let us fail.’ He wiped snow from his face and peered into the distance. ‘Someone is coming,’ he observed.
A Scout slipped towards them through the wind. Her blades were retracted, her eyes pulled in tight.
‘Small group approaching from the mountains,’ she reported.
‘They’ll be wanting to parley,’ suggested Wolfgang.
Eleanor raised her rifle by way of answer. ‘Artemis does not parley,’ she said.
‘No,’ said Kavan. ‘I want to speak. We know so little about them. I want to know what they think is important. Call a halt. Tell the troops to stand at ease.’
The message went out and the army emptied itself into the available cracks of the land as troops sought shelter in the lee of rocks to adjust electromuscle and clear away snow. But Kavan and Eleanor remained standing, waiting, the blizzard whipping around their bodies.
Two Scouts came forward, leading a third robot between them.
Kavan had never seen its like before. The newcomer was so small and thin. It wore no plating, leaving its bare electromuscle exposed to the wind. Kavan found himself trying to peer beyond the muscle, to see if it were true, that the robots of the North Kingdom really wore wooden bones.
The strange robot raised a hand. ‘The Wizard of the North Kingdom sends his greetings, Kavan, by way of his servant, Banjo Macrodocious.’
Wolfgang spoke at Kavan’s side.
‘A slave name. This robot will have no sense of self.’
‘I suppose that is why it has been sent to speak to us,’ he mused. He looked down at the slave robot, at its small body and ridiculously oversized head. He didn’t bother to raise his own hand in reply.
‘You describe yourself as the Wizard’s servant?’ he said. ‘In Artemis there are no servants, for we all merely follow Nyro’s philosophy. Well, Banjo Macrodocious, take this message to the Wizard, that Artemis welcomes all those robots that wish to follow Nyro’s philosophy.’
‘I have no orders to take messages to the Wizard,’ replied Banjo Macrodocious. ‘Rather, I am here to bring this message: that the North Kingdom is mentioned in the Book of Robots, and there it is written that no one shall enter it uninvited. Those who seek to do so are working contrary to the true purpose, and therefore they will fail.’
‘I don’t believe in the Book of Robots,’ said Kavan. ‘I say that we have no creator, we have no purpose, save that which we choose ourselves.’
Banjo Macrodocious ignored this – as he would have been told to do, realized Kavan.
‘It is written in the Book of Robots that those who cross the line of the mountains will have their true nature revealed to them in three ways,’ said Banjo Macrodocious. ‘First their artefacts will fail, then their bodies will fail, and finally their minds will fail. For all that is twisted in metal was originally written in the Book of Robots, along with the works that they should perform.’
‘Kill him,’ said Kavan, and the blade of one of the Storm Troopers swept out of the blizzard, slicing the head of Banjo Macrodocious neatly in two. Kavan peered closely at the wire that lay inside, and saw that it was just like the blue wire of any other robot. Well, almost the same; it had an odd greenish tinge to it, as if the metal used were not quite pure. Probably due to the scarcity of metal up here, he realized. Thoughtfully, he squatted and pulled aside the electromuscle of the dead robot’s arm. There was metal beneath, not wood.
He straightened up.
‘Was that wise, Kavan?’ asked Eleanor.
‘Better that than he continues to spread superstition amongst the troops.’ He looked to Wolfgang. ‘Get somebody to check that body over, and then recycle the metal. Get the troops to fall in. We march on.’
Nettie was speaking again at the front of the lecture hall, as the women sat and listened in self-satisfied silence. They were the mothers of Artemis, they wove minds, they were respected. The shouts and the screams of Turing City could only be faintly recalled now, the memories of loved ones fading with time.
Susan still sat a little apart from them, still the outcast. And yet now it wasn’t so bad, as she had found a friend in Nettie. Nettie the childless woman. Nettie the mother to all those Artemisian minds they wound in the night.
They were supposed to be debating, rehearsing, discussing the way in which Nyro wove a mind. Instead, Susan’s mind was wandering.
The mark? Nettie had mentioned the mark. She had said that Susan had woven it into her own body, and yet Susan could see nothing. It couldn’t even be said that she still wore the same body. Over the weeks, the women had all been slowly replacing parts of themselves with Artemisian spares. They were all gradually assuming the same short, stocky appearance of Artemis robots. Yet Nettie said she could still see the mark there in Susan’s body.
Susan looked from herself to Nettie, looking for what they had in common, looking to see how they differed from the other robots. She could see nothing obvious.
And then there was the knowledge. That fragment of purpose in her mind that Nettie had told her would be there. Something woven by her mother. Some understanding or philosophy. She searched her mind again, just as she had done so many times before. At night, kneeling and twisting wire, in lectures, in muttered conversations with Nettie. Nothing. There was nothing there.
Someone was watching her. The woman in the next seat was smirking at her. It made her think of something that Nettie had said while they had been crossing to the forge, across the moonlightfilled yard.
‘Why do robots smile, Susan?’ Nettie had asked. ‘Why do we have mouths? All we need is a speaker, and yet we weave electromuscle and construct mouths to communicate, visually. Where did that idea come from? I’ll tell you – from The Book of Robots! We all still refer back to the original plan in subtle ways. Listen, Susan, we take so much for granted in this world.’ And she had stopped, there in the middle of the yard, her body shining dully in the moonlight. ‘There are clues all around us, and they are so big that we don’t notice them.’