There was a Wiener family lying dead in the living space of one apartment. Two children, noted Kavan with interest. The Wieners had this thing about building kids in pairs. He never quite understood it. Still, he bent and inspected the little bodies. Interface coils crushed, but brains untouched. It was a neat job. A soldier’s job. The minds in those skulls were still alive, but now cast adrift in eternal darkness and silence. It would be merciful to kill them, but mercy took time, and anyway they weren’t Artemisians. Just metal to be reclaimed by the salvage squads. The railway lines would be approaching Wien even now. Soon these bodies would be crushed, the metal loaded onto flat trucks and taken back to feed the forges of Artemis.
It was time to get back, but Kavan paused just a moment longer. This apartment was unusual. Foreign. Built in the Wiener way, half stone and half metal. There was even biological life growing in it. Deliberately cultivated by the looks of it. Long green strands of – what were they called, leaves? – trailing from pots.
Really odd.
From outside, Kavan heard the sound of unfamiliar voices.
He hurried out to see what was going on.
There were three Storm Troopers out there now. One of them was Eleanor. Kavan deliberately took his time walking up to the group. He could hear Eleanor speaking as he approached.
‘… requisitioned these troops for myself,’ she was saying. ‘I’m taking them out to the islands to sweep and comb.’
‘What did you say your name was?’ asked one of the newly arrived Storm Troopers.
‘Eleanor. What did you say your name was?’
‘Di’Anno. Funny. I don’t remember meeting you before, and I thought I knew most of the STs on this incursion.’
‘You know what, I really don’t care.’
Kavan came to attention by the group. ‘Area’s clear, Eleanor. All ready to move out.’
‘Very good, Kavan. Have the robots form up in two lines.’
‘Kavan?’ said one of the Storm Troopers. ‘You were in Stark. I’ve heard of you. You’re a hero.’
‘I don’t know about that.’
‘You’re also trouble.’
‘Oh, I am,’ said Kavan. ‘You’ve no idea how much.’
The three Storm Troopers were moving swiftly, forming a triangle, Kavan at the centre of it.
‘You are under arrest. We have orders to bring you to field command.’
‘Field command are fools,’ said Kavan. ‘I would have issued orders long ago for my immediate execution.’ He glanced at Eleanor. ‘Okay then,’ he said. ‘Take me in.’
Eleanor
Eleanor had not expected to see so many colours inside a creature. Greased iron alloy plates over brass and aluminium, steel and copper bones steeped in rock oil. The looming bulk of the whale seemed to have been more excavated than disassembled.
The creature had been dragged up the concrete slipway from the water by steel ropes. It lay on its side in the shallow cutting that slid down into the clear water of Wien bay, Artemisian soldiers walking over and around it, inspecting its parts. The top half of the creature was still reasonably intact: General Fallan himself, full of the flush of victory, had invited Eleanor to join him as he picked his way carefully over the greased, interlocking plates of the whale’s flank. They had both watched the troops peeling away copper plate and electromuscle from the exposed interior of the beast. They had looked down into the scratched quartz bowl that protected its eye, seen the faint glow and felt the creature focus on him.
‘It’s still alive?’ he had asked.
At first Eleanor thought he was speaking to her, but then Ruth, the General’s aide, had answered.
‘Oh yes,’ she said. ‘The Wieners always preserve the brains. They put them in the support tanks at the top of the towers,’ and she had waved her hand to indicate the few marble towers that still rose from the islands of Wiener bay.
‘General,’ interrupted Eleanor, ‘there is someone below who wishes to speak…’
‘In a moment, Storm Trooper,’ said the General. ‘Look at all this metal. Don’t you wish to rebuild yourself too?’ He waved a hand at the other troops as they swarmed over the half-demolished body, pulling apart the metal of the whale and clothing their bodies in its superior plate.
‘I will, General. It’s just that…’
‘All those marble towers,’ said the General, smooth in his new whaleskin body, ‘They each hold a mind, you know. Ruth tells me that the Wieners allow the whale minds to see by fashioning them eyes set in the windows of the towers. They give them ears to hear.’
‘Really?’ Eleanor had taken a real dislike to this smoothly engineered man. He spent his time dressing himself in whale metal and engaging in discussion while the remnants of the battle still played out around him. In her opinion, he wasn’t fit for purpose.
‘Oh yes,’ he continued. ‘The Wieners suspend these creatures’ non-sentient minds over the city. Tell me, do those whales think they are still under the sea, that the smoke that rises into the sky from the city forges is a new sort of weed, that the robots that walk beneath them are crabs and shellfish?’
‘I don’t know, General.’
‘The thought puzzles me! Why have the Wieners kept the whale minds alive? Why do they do it?’
‘They’ve always done it,’ said Ruth, as if that was an answer.
From the surrounding city came the sound of stamping feet: Stamp, stamp, stamp; stamp, stamp, stamp.
‘Still going strong, I hear,’ said General Fallan, and there was polite laughter from his staff. Eleven members of high command, all newly clad in whaleskin.
Eleanor had heard him speaking on the subject just as she had arrived in his presence, escorting Kavan through the perimeter of guards: ‘This skin is strong, heavy,’ the General had said. ‘Let this be our badge of victory. We will wear it with pride, not turn away from this gift in fear, like Nicolas the Coward.’
The first flush of victory, thought Eleanor, funny how quickly it ebbs away. All around there were the sounds of celebration. The General seemed to have forgotten that there was still much work to do. He began to descend down the side of the stricken whale, the rest of his entourage following him.
‘We need to discuss our next move,’ said Ruth. ‘Turing City.’
‘Give us a break, Ruth!’ laughed General Fallan. ‘We need to rest, repair and regroup. We shall establish ourselves here in Wien, and ensure that we have full control before we move on.’
‘No, General,’ said Eleanor firmly, ‘we haven’t got the time.’
At that General Fallan finally seemed to notice Eleanor properly. He gazed at her in her big black Storm Trooper body.
‘I’m sorry, soldier. Why exactly are you here?’
At that the concrete slipway echoed to the sound of marching feet. Kavan had grown impatient, had marched forward with the rest of the grey infantry. Walked forward to meet the General, now stepping down from the body of the whale.
Kavan moved forward and pointed out Eleanor.
‘She is here because she brought me here, General. Me and the rest of my squad. And no one questioned our presence. Sloppy, General, way too sloppy.’
Eleanor towered above Kavan in her new body. Even so, the quiet authority that seemed to radiate from him left the General in no doubt who was in charge.
‘We need to attack Turing City swiftly,’ said Kavan, ‘while this victory is still in their minds. We have the strength and the will.’
‘Who are you?’ asked General Fallan. ‘How dare you interrupt my war council?’
‘This is no war council. This is a group of tired, discredited old robots justifying their bad decisions and growing fat on the spoils of war.’
To Fallan’s obvious astonishment, Kavan leaned forward and flicked the dark whale iron of his breastplate.
‘How dare you speak to me like that, soldier?’ Fallan gazed coolly at Kavan. ‘Look at you, standing here in the midst of plenty and you still wear a body of old grey metal. Look at your troop.’ He turned to his staff, and from the
