Blood and Iron (2 page)
Authors: Tony Ballantyne
They looked at one another in terror.
‘But that can’t be true. Merriac said we would be safe!’
‘Safe?’ said the man by the door. ‘Doomed more like.’ He looked around the frightened faces for a moment. ‘Or maybe not. Because all is not yet lost.’
The background noise of static ceased at once.
‘Go on . . .’
‘Have you heard of Turing City?’
They looked at one another.
‘No,’ said one.
‘Turing City once stood on the southern coast of Shull. It was the last of the great city states of Shull to stand up to Artemis. But now it too is defeated.’
And at that he lowered his voice. ‘. . . or so it seems. For it is rumoured that deep below the ground, below the broken and shattered ground on which the city once stood, some few robots still shelter. They gather the minds of those captured by the Artemisians, and build them new bodies. Soldiers’ bodies. They say that they are building an army that will some day rise up and defeat Artemis City.’
‘Could it be true?’ asked one of the captured robots, eagerly. Merriac’s mistaken words were already forgotten, now they had new hope. The mothers of their kingdom twisted minds that were gullible. Small wonder it had fallen so easily.
‘Oh, it’s true,’ said the man by the door.
‘But how do you know this?’
The man raised his voice. ‘Because I am not a prisoner, as you are. Or rather, I am a prisoner, but voluntarily so.’
‘Why? What do you mean?’
The expectation in the wagon was audible. Metal squeaked as the robots leaned closer to listen.
‘Listen, robots. I know a way to escape. I found the route by chance two years ago when I rode this train as you do. I return time and again to lead others to safety.’
‘Who are you? You must have great courage!’
‘My name is Banjo Macrodocious, and no, I do not have great courage. For I feel no hope or fear.’
‘Banjo Macrodocious!’ chorused the other robots. They may not have heard of Turing City, but all of them had heard of the robots from the North Kingdom. Twisted to have no sense of self, they were in much demand for dangerous work. Or had been until Artemis had invaded.
‘Listen,’ said Banjo Macrodocious. ‘I work for the resistance of Turing City. I travel these lines, bringing the news to robots of how they may escape. Listen closely, for I know the route to freedom. It is dangerous, but you too may follow me, if you have the courage.’
‘We have the courage! Tell us, what should we do?’
Banjo Macrodocious leaned forward a little.
‘When the train draws up we will be met by soldiers with guns. They will herd us off this truck into a wide area, lit by lights but surrounded by darkness. There are few guards, and you may be tempted to run. Do not do so! It is a trick! The ground is surrounded by a moat of acid. Fall in and the metal of your mind will quickly burn away, leaving your body lifeless and easier to manipulate. Do not give the Artemisians that satisfaction!’
‘We hear you, Banjo Macrodocious. What should we do?’
‘Follow the guards’ directions. They will march you into the first disassembly area. Do not wait for their mechanics to come to you! Strip apart your own bodies. Tear the plating from your chest and arms and legs, and throw it into the waiting hoppers. Speed is of the essence!’
‘But why?’
‘Because though the disassembly room will be empty at first, it will fill with more and more robots as this train empties. More Artemisians will enter to aid in the deconstruction. We need to be at the front of the line! The first few minds through are always the ones to be saved: they are taken for storage. It takes time to twist a mind, and the women of Artemis are always behind schedule. Artemis will ensure its store rooms are full before it destroys healthy minds!’
The robots looked from one to another.
‘That makes sense, Banjo Macrodocious. What do we do next?’
‘Once you have stripped your panelling, form into a line.’
‘Okay . . .’
‘Take apart the robot in front of you. Remove their electro-muscles and drop them on the moving belt to your left. Unship their arms and legs and drop them on the belt to your right, and then lift the body onto the final conveyor belt, and hope that the robot behind will do the same for you.’
‘Where will you be, Banjo Macrodocious?’
‘I will be at the rear of the line.’
‘What if someone does not do the same for you? What if you are left whole?’
‘Then I will not make it through.’
A brief hiss of static.
‘But what do I care? I who have no sense of self. You robots will survive. Though your minds will be in darkness, you will be safe, in the store rooms. Some of you will be used to drive machinery, some of you may even be used as minds for infantry-robots. But you will be safe, waiting for the call. Waiting for the day that Turing City rises again!’
Although they had never heard of Turing City, they felt a surge of hope at the name. They wanted to live. They wanted Artemis City to be defeated.
And so the train drew to a halt. The robots waited in tense anticipation, but now a little of the fear had gone. The doors fell open and the sound of a guard was heard, harsh and commanding.
‘Outside, all of you!’
The robots dutifully filed out into a wide area lit by floodlights and surrounded by darkness. To their surprise there was only one guard, and he was a pitiful thing, a grey infantryrobot carrying an old weapon. But they weren’t fooled. They marched forward in line, into the waiting building.
Inside all was astir, blue-painted Artemisian engineers marched back and forth, sorting through the hoppers of robot parts. Hands and feet and electromuscles of robots from across the continent. Bins filled with blue twisted wire.
The engineers looked on in amazement as the prisoners began to strip themselves down, but then they moved forward and helped them to remove those awkward parts that had stuck together during those long weeks in the wagon without oil or grease.
First the panels, then the electromuscle, then the steel bones; the robots took themselves apart, dropping muscle here and limbs there. The air was filled with the clank of metal, the hum of machinery, the spark of the cutter, the glow of the forge.
The engineers’ surprise turned to disbelief as the prisoners lifted each other onto the final conveyor belt. These robots were of an unusual build, but the engineers had disassembled bodies from across the continent. They quickly figured out what to do.
Now all of the robots from the wagon were lying on the conveyor belt, and the blue-painted engineers moved in to remove their minds from their heads. They cracked open the metal skulls and pulled out the blue wire bundles inside, which they tossed into the fires that glowed yellow-red behind them. The blue metal sagged and then melted, running down through the coal to form a hard metal clinker beneath. Soon the fires would be extinguished and the ash and clinker raked away to be recycled.
One of the engineers moved to the rear of the line. The last robot from the wagon stood there, watching in amusement.
‘I don’t know how you get them to do that, Fess,’ he said.
The man who pretended to be called Banjo Macrodocious was looking on in wonder.
‘Their king had his subjects made to be that gullible. It’s how he kept himself in power.’
‘Well not any more,’ said the engineer briskly. ‘He’ll be through here himself soon. Artemis will have no use for someone like that.’
Contents
4 THE EBB AND FLOW OF METAL TIDES
Wa-Ka-Mo-Do
How beautiful stand the plants in the Emperor’s garden.
Wa-Ka-Mo-Do, self-built robot; warrior of Ko of the state of Ekrano in the High Spires; one of the Eleven, displayed none of the wonder he felt at standing here in the heart of the Silent City. His expression was still, for the mothers of Ko believed in this as they knelt to twist the wire that would form the minds of the next generation: that a robot should have the aspect of a warrior, but the soul of a poet.
So Wa-Ka-Mo-Do’s body was still and silent. Unlike the other robots here in the Silent City, his panelling was painted. The metal had been dipped in scarlet paint and then left to dry smooth. Gloss paint, polished to a shine, easy to chip, easily damaged in a fight. Did the robots of the Silent City understand that? Did they understand that the chrome beading around the eyes, the mouth, the joints in his arms and legs would easily mark? That keeping himself unscratched was an advertisement of his skill?
The red joints of his fingers and feet would move like beetle backs, but for now he was motionless, blending into brightly coloured surroundings. Seen from a distance he was a collection of fragments, sharp amidst the dappled sunlight, hard blades and glossy red painted metal; mind fixed in contemplation of the poetry arranged before him.
Poems written in the medium of organic life: a folio compiled by the robots whom the Emperor had sent out across the planet Penrose, commanding them to seek beauty in every form, whether it be the glow of iron, pulled hot from the forge, or the curve of the body of some young robot in her newly built adult form.
But the Emperor’s vision was wider than this, for he also commanded that his robots look for poetry amongst the lewd profusion of organic life that flourishes in the most unlikely corners of the continents of Yukawa: maybe in the curl of a plant or the arrangement of petals on a flower or the spreading canopy of a tree.
And so those robots, those poets of another age, had travelled the length and breadth of the continent, taking an insect or a seed here, a piece of plating or a cutting there, and had brought them back to be placed in the garden of the Emperor.
And, oh, what vision the Emperor had displayed when he had his stately garden decreed.
A pit, three miles across, long mined of porphyry copper, had been filled with gravel and soil and then surrounded by a wall of burnished iron, bound in brass, inlaid with copper. Stone paths had been laid through the virgin soil, along which robot gardeners walked, sowing seeds, planting roots, watering and weeding, pruning and tending, raising the plants and trees and ferns that were brought to them. Silver insects scuttled across the floor, metal shells flashing brightly. Larger animals paced their gilded cages or pulled disconsolately at feet welded to metal platforms.
In the midst of this, Wa-Ka-Mo-Do finally collected his thoughts and began to walk towards the Silver Circle, the heart of the garden. His iron feet pressed dents into the green turf, his polished scarlet body danced in yellow and gold, the reflections of the cloud of butterflies that burst from the grass with each step. Pollen fell from the scarlet flowers that sprouted in obscene profusion amongst the canopy of the fuchsia trees, it dusted his body, worked its way into his joints and seams to be trapped in the delicate thread of his electromuscle. White pom-poms nodded their heads in the breeze, a stream of pink blossom meandered its lazy way down from the treetops, it wound its way through the golden butterflies, a widening stream of blossom, a river, a wave of pink petals, a tsunami . . .
From the swirl of colour, a figure materialized. A tall robot, clad in intricately worked metal. He had no arms.
Wa-Ka-Mo-Do lowered his head in submission.
The tall robot spoke.
‘When you meet the Emperor, don’t speak of the world outside of the garden.’
‘I thought you were the Emperor,’ said Wa-Ka-Mo-Do, looking up.
‘No, I am O, his spokesrobot. The Emperor is too busy to attend to all the details of the State of Yukawa. Your audience, however brief, will be sufficient to grant the seal of approval on your mission.’