Maybe he would return here later with an astronomer.
An astronomer? He gazed back up at the slots incorporated in the facing walls of the building. Now he knew what this building had been originally: an observatory. Those slots had held the mechanism that supported the telescope.
So, the robots at the top of the world had come here to Shull to look at the stars. And this is what they had seen, engraved on one wall of the building. What then? Had they taken down their telescope and installed this exhibit instead? Why? What could they have seen in the stars that would have caused them to do that?
Kavan looked at that plastic roof again. The exhibit had come much later, he was sure of that. This building reminded him of a battleground. A battle between two competing philosophies. Perhaps the robots at the top of the world had built it to perpetuate the myth of the Book of Robots. Perhaps other robots had built it to destroy that myth.
Kavan thought about Eleanor again. He should summon her to the building. Maybe she would spot something that he had missed? But he was unwilling to do so. Eleanor was already too unpredictable. What if she were to see something important and not tell him? Then he noticed something else written on the map wall. Something not so carefully engraved as the galactic map, but something written in a different style, carelessly scratched into the wall at robot height.
The Story of Nicolas the Coward, he read. And then:
The Story of the Four Blind Horses.
The Story of Eric and the Mountain.
And then, finally, in much larger letters:
Zuse! The Night Moon! The robots at the top of the world said it was the proof! Treason! But perhaps the Book exists, after all!
He gazed at the words. He had heard the first story, of course. Everyone had. The second sounded vaguely familiar, too. But the third one, Eric and the Mountain. He was sure that he had never heard of that before.
And as for the last words. The night moon? The robots at the top of the world had come here and had looked at the stars, and had found that Zuse was the proof.
Proof of what? Kavan had looked at the night moon nearly every night of his life. It was just a moon, a perfectly normal part of his existence. What could the robots at the top of the world have seen in the stars that led them to believe that their moon was proof of anything?
Slowly, Kavan looked around the room, taking in the map, the display of the bodies, trying to understand what he was looking at.
For the first time in a life built on certainty, he wondered if there were other answers written before him, answers that he had walked past without noticing their presence.
Eleanor
‘What do you think is over there?’ Eleanor asked Karel, gesturing to the northernmost part of the island. ‘Shall we go and have a look?’
‘What about Kavan?’ asked Karel.
Eleanor laughed. ‘Kavan has led an army that has conquered an entire continent. I’m sure he’ll be okay on his own in some old building for a few minutes.’
She began to walk down the northern slope of the island towards the sea. Pale yellow sun broke through the clouds and bathed her in its light.
She could hear the tread of metal on rock as Karel followed her.
‘I thought as much,’ said Eleanor. ‘Look at that, the way the rock slopes into the sea. Banjo Macrodocious was right. There is a road from here to the north, or there was once, anyway. You can see its pattern under the shingle and the shells. It’s been cracked and washed away, but there it goes, heading to the top of the world.’
Karel gazed at it. ‘Do you think we are standing at the beginning or the end?’ he asked.
‘I was wondering exactly the same thing…’ she said, and she turned to face him. ‘… Brother.’
He gazed back at her, taking in what she had just said.
‘You didn’t really think it was Kavan, did you?’ she said.
‘What are you talking about? I don’t have a sister!’
She looked closer at him, gazed into his yellow eyes. ‘I had wondered. You didn’t even notice that we have the same colour eyes?’
He looked back at her. He knew she was speaking the truth, she realized. Eleanor almost laughed. She knew exactly what he was thinking. Of course she did. They both were the same person. Liza had woven them both to be the same, save for that one small variation in the weave…
‘I never thought that I was like Kavan,’ said Karel defensively.
‘Yes, you did,’ said Eleanor. ‘You thought that he was your dark side revealed. You thought that you could do all that he has done. You can’t lie to me. I am you. Look at me, look at how far I’ve risen within Artemis. All because of the way that our mother wove us. All because some soldier with a gun wanted to know what she really believed. You know what the joke was, though, don’t you? Neither Artemis nor Turing City were what they claimed to be; when it comes to the crunch, hardly any one really believes what they think they believe.’
Karel said nothing.
‘But you and I are different, aren’t we, Brother? Because when that soldier held that gun to Liza’s head he made her do something that neither of them expected… You don’t want to believe me, do you? You even hate me a little for what I’m saying. I know why, because I feel it a little myself. Better to be Kavan than to be me. Better the leader than the second-in-command. You’re reduced a little by seeing what you could have become, had you thrown in your lot with Artemis. You’d like to believe you could have gone all the way.’
‘Artemisians are killers. I’d never have supported them.’
‘Yes you would. Look at me: I’m the proof that you would. Come on, Karel, there’s no shame in being second-best. Aren’t you proud of me? Second-in-command isn’t bad. And it helps you to realize just what a genius Kavan is. We couldn’t have done what he did. Look at us – we couldn’t even bring ourselves to kill him.’
Karel was whining softly. Eleanor could hear the faintest edge of feedback in the air.
‘You know it’s true, Karel. Think about it, Kavan never knew anything about you. How could he? It was I who told him about the robot with the unknown mind in Turing City. It was I who saved you from your apartment and had you put on that train.’
‘It was you that had Axel killed!’ he shouted.
‘Listen Karel,’ she said, ‘I have no loyalty to your wife or to your child, I only have loyalty to Artemis. And to you. Liza twisted it into me when she made me. Fighting back at her attacker in the only way that she could. That and her little trick with the second child’s sex. How would he tell the difference, until it was too late?’
‘Eleanor?’
They both stopped at the sound of the voice. Kavan had returned.
Karel and Eleanor turned to gaze at Kavan. How much had he heard?
He didn’t appear to register anything. ‘We return south,’ said Kavan. ‘There is nothing for us here.’
Eleanor and Karel exchanged glances.
‘But what about the Book of Robots?’ asked Karel.
‘The Book of Robots does not exist,’ replied Kavan. ‘There is nothing in that building but what we have always known. Proof of robot evolution.’
‘I don’t believe it,’ said Karel. ‘Let me see.’
‘There is no need to see,’ replied Kavan. ‘I speak the truth. This world is a natural place. There is nothing in that building or anywhere else to suggest otherwise.’
‘Why bring me up here if you’re not going to let me see the building? I have experience of other cultures!’
‘Yes?’ Kavan seemed nonplussed. ‘That experience is valueless. There is only one culture of note, and that is Artemis.’
‘But what about Turing City?’
‘Turing City is no more.’
‘No!’
‘You doubt my word? But you saw what we did there.’ Kavan seemed more confused than annoyed.
‘I want to see what’s in the building!’ repeated Karel.