Blood and Iron p-2

by Tony Ballantyne

  Susan moved deeper into the earth, the piles of bricks became more frequent, until eventually they stood before a robot, its body shiny and freshly made.

  ‘I’m looking for a robot named Nettie,’ said Spoole.

  The robot gazed back with its grey eyes. Susan felt the current build within her muscles. The unfused robot spoke.

  ‘I know of three robots by that name,’ it said. ‘Scout, Infantry-robot and Making Room.’

  ‘She worked in the making rooms!’ said Susan eagerly.

  ‘Making Room,’ said Spoole.

  ‘Nettie,’ said the robot. ‘Mother Kinsle, Father Jaman. Constructed in-’

  ‘Hold,’ said Spoole. ‘I don’t want her history. Where is she now?’

  ‘Assigned to Making Room 14, temporarily seconded to Barrack 245, awaiting transfer to Aleph Base pending its construction by the animals.’

  ‘What?’ said Susan. ‘They’re sending her to the humans? Why?’

  The unfused robot said nothing, just stared forward with those dull grey eyes.

  Spoole spoke.

  ‘State her new assignment.’

  ‘Nettie is to commence training of batch Aleph of the new mothers of Artemis under the direction of the animals.’

  ‘What?’ Susan looked at Spoole, eyes burning brightly.

  Spoole said nothing. He was gazing at the unfused robot, his eyes glowing brightly.’

  ‘What, Spoole? What is it?’

  ‘Sandale! Don’t you see what he’s done? He’s a traitor!’

  ‘Traitor to Artemis? Good!’

  ‘Don’t be so stupid! Do you think the animals will still have to deal with Artemis City when they have robots with minds woven to serve them directly? Sandale has betrayed Nyro!’

  ‘All for a few tons of metal?’ said Susan.

  ‘This isn’t Nyro’s way,’ said Spoole, his voice crackling with static. ‘This isn’t about Artemis, this isn’t about Kavan, this is about robots keeping themselves in power by any means! This is what happens when robots’ minds are woven to think of leadership above all else!’

  He was so angry, Susan could feel the flash of current through his electromuscles, see the way his eyes were glowing.

  ‘This is wrong!’ he said. ‘I have been distracted, I’ve allowed Sandale and the rest to cloud my thoughts! Sulking down here when I should have been out in the city, alerting the true Artemisians to what was happening!’

  He looked around the small room. He looked down at his own body.

  ‘I should be out there with Kavan, helping him to fight against this heresy, not standing here in this over-styled body, of no use to anyone but myself.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Susan, frightened by his sudden passion, nervous to be so far underground, trapped in the middle of the city. ‘Let’s get out of here then. Let’s go and find Kavan.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Spoole. He made to climb the metal steps to the next level, and then paused. Susan heard it too: the sound of more feet on steps, the sound of voices.

  ‘This way!’ shouted someone. ‘Down this way! Spoole is trapped!’

  Kavan

  The clock tower in the centre of Stark rose to nearly eight hundred feet. Kavan could see it in the distance, rising over the horizon, and he wondered why Artemis had left it in place when they conquered that state. It served no purpose now. Back when Stark was an independent force, it had spread its influence throughout eastern Shull by ensuring each town and village had its own timepiece. It was a form of control far more subtle than that practised by Artemis City, but just as effective.

  Kavan had passed through many villages on his way here, each with their brick clock tower empty and broken or turned to the business of Artemis. No longer did every town click and advance to the radio-synchronized tick of the Stark clocks. But then again, nor did they move to the glory of Nyro and the advancement of the Artemisian State.

  Out here towards the eastern coast the land turned to rocky rills wound with rivers of sand and gravel. The Artemisians had laid railway lines that followed the lie of the land. Those railway lines were now subtly altered.

  ‘The humans have done a lot of work in a very little time,’ said Ada.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Calor. ‘They were here already. The animals were in Shull before they came to Artemis City. I’ve spoken to the other robots from round here.’

  ‘Spoole and the General must have given them this land as a staging post,’ said Kavan.

  ‘There was an Artemisian refinery to the east,’ said Calor. ‘The humans have taken it over. They must have been there for some weeks. You can see the changes they’ve made to it. They’ve modified the railway lines out here too. Straightened their courses.’

  ‘Then the fact they have been here for some time makes me feel a little happier,’ said Ada. ‘Perhaps they are not so different to us.’

  ‘What do they use the railway lines for?’ asked Kavan

  ‘They’re taking refined oil to Artemis City. Their trains can move at incredible speeds.’

  ‘They plan well,’ said Kavan. ‘They’re not stupid.’

  ‘Train approaching now,’ said Calor.

  ‘I can hear it,’ said Kavan. That high-pitched whistle. He could see it, too. So much metal moving through an electrical field, it lit up in a rainbow of colours, an elongated raindrop that drew a shrieking line across the countryside.

  ‘It’s the way they put all their technology on display,’ he mused. ‘Don’t they realize what they are doing?’

  ‘I don’t think they do,’ said Ada. ‘But they think so very differently to us. Comes of being organic, I would guess, comes of being a statistical fluke. They don’t design themselves, like we do. They accept the good and the bad in their bodies, they can’t omit the flaws when they make themselves, like a robot would.’

  ‘I know,’ said Kavan. ‘But look at that. How can they be so stupid and so clever at the same time? It’s like they’ve handed us a loaded gun.’

  And then the train was upon them. It made far less noise than Kavan had expected, so smoothly did it cut through the air. There was virtually no engine noise, just that shrill whistling.

  ‘If only I could examine one of those motors,’ said Ada wistfully. ‘It’s impossible to stop one of those trains without destroying it. They move so fast. And as for the fuel it’s carrying…’

  There was a zip and the train passed. The engineer followed its course, thinking.

  ‘No,’ said Ada. ‘We don’t need it. We can make a good enough copy for our own purposes.’

  ‘Very well,’ said Kavan.

  ‘Okay, time to get down there.’

  Ada and her engineers were up and gone. Four of them ran down the tracks, measuring, touching the rails, looking up at the wires that looped overhead, talking all the while. Calor stalked up and down the gravel nearby, kicking stones, expending the energy that constantly built up within her.

  ‘Okay!’ called Ada. ‘Bring it down.’

  It took four engineers to carry the device down to the tracks. They pointed its nose towards distant Artemis City.

  ‘Nice and straight,’ said Ada. ‘A good test.’

  Twenty minutes until the next train. More than enough time.

  ‘Do you think it will work?’ called Calor, skittish with underuse.

  ‘It doesn’t matter what I think,’ said Kavan. ‘I’m not an engineer.’

  They looked down at the device Ada and her team had put together. It was about as long as two robots lying end to end, and shaped like the blade of a knife.

  ‘Ada, I’m impressed,’ said Kavan. ‘Barely two weeks since you first saw a flying machine, and already you’ve built this.’

  ‘We wondered whether to place the eyes on top or underneath,’ said Ada, modestly, as she lifted a flap and adjusted a lever inside. ‘In the end we put them below. We thought that it could watch the ground, fly closer to it that way.’

  Kavan crouched down to look under the machine. He saw
two blue eyes there, midway along the smooth underside of the device.

  ‘The engine design is our own. We tried to copy the animals’ designs, but there are too many unknowns. We can’t make the alloys they can, we can’t refine fuel so well.’

  ‘Are they cleverer than us, Ada?’

  ‘I don’t think so. But they’ve had to work harder than we have to stay alive. They’ve needed to develop faster than us: they are such fragile creatures.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Kavan, and he looked once more at the device. ‘Still, you’ve done well. Out here on the plain, constantly moving, and you manage to build this.’

  ‘That’s the difference between us and the animals,’ said Ada. ‘I’ve been thinking about it. Animals need food and water. They will naturally congregate around sources of both. Rivers, fields. They will stay there, like young robots around the family forge. You’ve heard what the Scouts say. The animals have set up base near Artemis City.’

  Kavan said nothing, but he was surprised. It was unusual for an engineer to even notice a Scout, never mind listen to what they had to say. Things were changing…

  ‘Well, there could be good reasons for that.’

  ‘Maybe there are, Kavan. You should know, you’re the leader, you’re the strategist. But staying in one place has never been your tactic, has it? You’re constantly on the move, constantly on the attack. If you’d landed on this planet you’d be halfway across the continent by now, making new soldiers as you went.’

  ‘Maybe…’

  ‘Look at us! They chased us away from Artemis City. You didn’t make a new base, you spread out your army! All those little cells across the land, planning, moving, waiting for the next assault.’

  ‘You understand that, Ada?’ said Kavan in surprise. ‘You can see that?’

  ‘Why not? The animals are here, and there are a whole set of new engineering problems to think about. Isn’t it great?’

  Kavan gazed at her. Sometimes he just didn’t know what other robots were thinking.

  ‘Ten minutes to the train,’ said Calor, still dancing back and forth. Kavan looked at the blunt arrow shape, lying on the tracks. ‘Has your device seen enough?’

  ‘I think so,’ said Ada.

  ‘Okay. Let’s go,’ said Kavan. ‘We don’t want the animals to get suspicious. Keep moving, keep preparing.’ He looked at the device.

  ‘Is it ready? Can we send the plans to the other engineers?’

  ‘I think so,’ said Ada.

  ‘Yes!’ shouted Calor, swiping her blades through the air.

  ‘Take Mivan’s mind,’ said Ada. ‘He’s got as good an understanding as anyone.’

  Mivan knelt down and another engineer carefully removed his mind from his blue body. He handed it to Calor, who turned without a word and sped off south, heading to another of the small groups that were dotted around the border of the Artemisian plain.

  ‘What about Artemis City?’ asked Ada. ‘Are you sure about them?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Kavan, watching Mivan’s former body being disassembled by the other engineers. They stored the parts in the large bags they carried around with them. ‘You know machines, Ada, I know war. There will be many robots in Artemis City who are unhappy about the animals. Some of them will follow us when the time comes.’

  ‘I hope there will be enough.’

  Susan

  The sound of stamping feet came closer. Suddenly they halted, and a voice called out.

  ‘Spoole! We have an order for your arrest, authorized by General Sandale. You are hereby charged with treason against the Artemisian State.’

  ‘Fools!’ said Spoole. ‘There’s only one way out of this place. They should have waited at the top for us, and then captured us as we left!’

  ‘What are we to do?’ asked Susan, terrified.

  ‘Use our minds.’

  Spoole was already setting off up the stairs, heading towards the troops.

  ‘Fools,’ he repeated, eyes glowing with anger. ‘This is what comes of never having fought for yourself!’

  Up another flight of steps, the sound of voices and feet coming closer, and then, just when Susan thought she would meet their pursuers, Spoole headed into a side room and descended the steps in there, following a different branch of the binary tree.

  ‘Quiet!’ he said, holding up a warning finger.

  Susan listened as the sound of footsteps came closer.

  ‘We’re looking for a robot named Nettie!’

  She heard the colourless reply. ‘If that robot exists, its record will be down those steps.’

  They heard the clattering of footsteps receding.

  ‘They know about Nettie!’ said Spoole. ‘The Storm Trooper must have overheard us. Now, quietly!’

  Susan and Spoole retraced their steps, heading back to the surface, ears turned up full to listen for steps behind them, steps ahead of them. Spoole spoke so softly that Susan only heard the buzzing as she touched his metal shell.

  ‘So stupid,’ he kept repeating. ‘So, so stupid!’

  The unfused robots watched in silence as they passed, their grey eyes showing no interest or curiosity. The brickwork became older as they approached the surface. Spoole paused, listening.

  ‘No one behind us,’ he said. ‘Only Geraint ahead. Come on.’

  He climbed the last set of steps, up to the top. Geraint was waiting, rifle pointed at Spoole.

  ‘You summoned them,’ said Spoole. He sounded more disappointed than anything else.

  ‘Sorry, Spoole. I was ordered to report if you ever came here.’

  ‘Do you know what they’re doing, Geraint? They are weaving robot minds to serve the animals. They are weaving minds that do not follow Nyro!’

  Geraint hesitated.

  ‘It’s true,’ said Susan. ‘Go downstairs and ask the robot!’

  ‘I’m sorry, Spoole. I am woven to be loyal to Nyro.’

  ‘Loyal to Nyro, or loyal to the leaders of Artemis?’

  Geraint thought about it.

  ‘The second one.’

  ‘That was a mistake.’ Spoole looked at Susan. ‘We have got things so badly wrong.’ He turned back to the Storm Trooper, powerful black hands gripping the rifle. The bullet in there would pierce his skull and expand inside his mind, melting the wire as it tore it apart. ‘What are your orders, Geraint?’

  ‘Arrest you. If you resist arrest, I’m to kill you.’

  ‘No, I can’t let you do that! Come with me, Geraint, and hear the truth.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Spoole.’

  Geraint raised the gun.

  ‘Your leaders never fought in battles, Geraint, you know that?’

  ‘That doesn’t matter.’

  ‘It does, Geraint. They’d have known never to give a robot a rifle in room as small as this.’

  Spoole simply stepped forward, within the length of the barrel.

  ‘I’m still stronger than you, Spoole.’

  ‘But I was made to fight, as well as lead.’ He slammed a hand forward into Geraint’s chest, slammed the other up under the robot’s chin. ‘Knock your gyros out of sync for a moment,’ he said, as Geraint wobbled unsteadily on his feet, and he snatched the rifle from his hands, placed the stock on the floor, the barrel pointing up beneath Geraint’s chin, and fired. Blue wire expanded, slippery and sparking. Susan felt the percussion of the shot rattling inside her head: her ears were still turned up to their fullest extent.

  ‘Sorry, Geraint,’ said Spoole. Below them they could hear the pounding of feet. The other soldiers were coming towards them.

  ‘Now what?’ said Susan. Spoole told her what to do.

  Susan flung open the door to the database. Three infantry-robots waited outside under the bright stars.

  ‘This way!’ she called.

  The infantryrobots saw her grey body, saw she was one of their own, and ran into the building.

  ‘Down there,’ called Susan, pointing down the steps. She watched as they vanished from sight. Spool
e emerged from the other branch of the tree.

  ‘Made to lead,’ said Spoole, emerging into the night. ‘Strategy. It’s all about strategy.’

  ‘Well done,’ said Susan with grudging admiration. ‘Where now?’

  ‘Barrack 245. Find Nettie and the rest. Get the proof. Raise an army and throw these animals out of the city.’

  ‘What about the Generals?’ asked Susan.

  ‘I was talking about the Generals,’ said Spoole.

  Kavan

  Calor couldn’t help herself. She would run ahead of Kavan, then turn and wait for him to catch up. As soon as he reached her she was off again, another couple of hundred yards. Kavan hurried along behind her, his feet kicking loose stones into the little stream.

  ‘Not far,’ she said. ‘Just around the bend.’

  Kavan respected the animals. They didn’t think like robots, it was true, but they had established themselves upon Shull with a ruthless logic he admired.

  Their main base was close to Artemis City, but not too close. Any enemies approaching them would be seen from miles away across the plain, then either picked off by the Artemisians or the humans in their flying craft. Kavan hadn’t actually seen the human base, hiding as he was amongst the broken landscape near Stark, but he had had it described to him by Scouts and engineers who had observed it from as close as they could manage, dodging the Artemisian patrols and hiding from the craft that criss-crossed the sky.

  The base was well constructed, he understood. Two gigantic craft, surrounded by a perimeter of guns that moved of their own accord, turning to fire at robots that came too close. Even the Artemisians didn’t dare approach those guns: the plain was littered with the shattered metal remains of the bodies of robots that had gone too close. So much metal left to go to waste was unheard of in Artemis.

  Several buildings had already been constructed within the compound, and it was Kavan’s understanding that the perimeter of the base was expanding as time passed and more and more materials were brought into the base. Materials taken from Shull.

  Two railway lines led into the animals’ camp; they drew up alongside long platforms lined with cranes and other paraphernalia used to unload and load the trains that constantly ran back and forth between the camp and Artemis City.