knives and shears and cut the worms’ bodies open lengthways and then peeled them apart, laid them flat and plated the valley floor with copper, the remaining worms looking on, uncomprehending. They had taken those worms and built themselves castles with copper walls. They had unwound the electrum wire of the porphyry worms’ minds, and with it they wove children with golden minds.
They did all this without restraint, without guilt, and in doing so they rendered the porphyry worms extinct.
Only then did they look out at the once beautiful valley and see what they had done…
And this memory I will weave into you, my child, Susan thought to herself, for this was Turing City’s darkest moment, and it was as a reaction to the horror of this that we became what we became. This was where we learned to respect the mind as something more than just metal.
‘Are you okay, Susan?’ Karel was looking at her with such concern. ‘Are you thinking of the child?’
‘I was.’
They looked down at the valley now. Its rocky walls had long since been mined away, leaving a series of terraces. Bridges from one level led to the roofs of houses on the next level down. A maze of metal walkways and steps led them down to the railway station below. Many silver rails set in white concrete sleepers led north from the station, heading out over the Zernike plain beyond. A wide river, green with copper, ran southwards between brick embankments, twisting slowly underneath the pattern of the railway lines.
And then there was the railway station itself. Seen from above, it resembled an iron-and-glass sphere, cut into segments and then pressed flat on the ground. Arched glass canopies ran in all directions: they covered platforms serving railway lines that ran to all the former countries of southern Shull. Over to one side there were platforms for Bethe and Segre and Stark, the three of them crowded together, made of good steel and pale green glass. And over there was the wide arch of the Wien terminal, the long thin platform that jointly served Raman and Born, twisting like a snake in a north-westerly direction. And last, but by no means least, there was the Artemis terminal. Plain and functional in clear glass and dull iron it may have been, but it was by far the most impressive. Its utilitarian shape dominated the head of the valley, a visible proof of the power of the two states that it joined. Robots streamed into it, and a constant array of goods rolled in and out. Plain, functional machinery from Artemis exchanged for the delicate and quirky metalwork of Turing City.
‘Look,’ said Karel. ‘Look at all the City Guards down there! I’ve never seen so many of them!’
‘It’s what Noatak promised at parliament, remember? That the station would be guarded.’
Susan and Karel descended by the maze of metal walkways that led over the roofs of the buildings on the lower terraces, heading down to the wide marble square that lay before the station itself. Behind them, the shops and galleries of the retail district rose in riotous colour. Before them, the iron and glass of the station stood in measured solemnity.
‘What’s the matter, Susan?’
‘I don’t know…’ Susan wanted to ask him what was the noise that she could hear, but she felt too disoriented, like her gyros were spinning too quickly. She could hear the rumble of trains on the rails – that was normal, here outside the station – but there was something else too. A high-pitched whining noise that seemed to resonate with the wire of her mind.
‘Is it that noise?’ asked Karel, tilting his head. Susan nodded.
‘It is a little odd, isn’t it?’ He listened some more. ‘Don’t worry, it’s just a train approaching. A reaction engine, I think.’
Susan pulled at his hand.
‘Karel, let’s go.’
‘But we only just got here!’
The noise of the reaction engine filled her mind; it seemed to resonate with the wire of her brain, shrilling terror straight through her body to her electromuscles.
‘Karel, let’s get out of here. Please.’
‘Susan, you’re being silly. Look – look at all the guards. We shall be safe here.’ He pointed to a nearby guard, looming tall and silver in the sunlight.
Susan jerked at his arm. ‘Run, Karel. Please, let’s run…’
She pulled Karel along a few steps. The other robots in the marble square were looking at them curiously, but Susan didn’t care.
‘It’s all going to go wrong,’ she said with utter finality.
Karel started to walk with her back towards the steps that led up the residential district.
‘No, not up there,’ insisted Susan. ‘No, it’s the wrong way. We need to run. Back into the city, to the shops.’ It struck her then with a feeling like a cold awl plunged into her mind. ‘Oh, Zuse, what about Axel?’
Karel was staring at her, humouring her.
‘Why don’t we go back and see him?’ he asked carefully. ‘We could check he’s all right.’
‘No! We have to run!’
A Guard had seen them and came walking in their direction.
‘Is everything okay?’ she asked.
‘I think so…’ said Karel.
The high-pitched whine was louder now, accompanied by a rumble that was filling her body. Susan wrenched herself free of Karel, began to run. The rumble was filling her entire world. She ran. Stopped. Turned to see where Karel was.
He was there, following her, seemingly in slow motion.
But it was too late.
Behind him she saw the station, its roof glass glowing orange and white, like the sun was shining on it. But shining from inside, like the sun itself was within the station. A beautiful orange glow, licking outwards from the centre of the Artemis terminal. Things were moving so slowly. The glass was shattering, diamond shards floating outwards, tumbling prettily, end over end. And look, behind them, clouds of orange flame blooming, spreading across the windows of the station walls like drops of oil on water before the glass began to bloom and shatter. And now the metal of the arches and vaulting was twisting upwards and outwards, spreading like open hands…
And, with a solid wham, time slammed back into normal speed, and she was picked up and blown across the great square by the force of the explosion. Her ears exploded. Her eyes whited out. The last thing she saw was the incredulous expression on Karel’s face as he was flung towards her.
‘She did it,’ said Eleanor, in tones of mild surprise.
Kavan raised himself to his feet, body swaying as the carriage rolled slowly away from the explosion.
‘Dorore actually did it,’ repeated Eleanor. ‘I didn’t think she would.’
‘She was a true Artemisian at the core,’ said Kavan. His ears were crackling, the after-effects of the explosion that had taken place four and half miles away, right at the head of the train. He opened the door of the carriage and saw the ground rolling by, white sleepers and grey gangue. They were going backwards. Ahead, black smoke was rising from the shattered railway station at the head of the valley.
‘Get the troops to move out. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover.’
Eleanor gave the signal. All the way back along the stripped-bare carriage, soldiers got to their feet, opened the jerry-built doors they had hacked out of the carriage walls and bailed out onto the ground.
‘I wish we had more Storm Troopers,’ said Eleanor. ‘There’s barely two thousand of us. There are over thirty thousand robots in Turing City. We don’t stand a chance against them.’
‘Spoole thought it enough,’ said Kavan.
‘Spoole is forcing you to commit suicide, Kavan. He wants you dead.’
‘Artemis doesn’t want. Artemis just is.’
‘Cut the rust, Kavan. We’re not talking about Artemis, we’re talking about Spoole.’
‘That should be the same thing.’
Eleanor was staring at him like he was being stupid.
‘We’re up against the City Guard,’ she warned.
‘That’s what I’m counting on, Eleanor. Don’t you see, Turing Citizens aren’t like Artemisians? They’re not like
