‘You don’t really believe in Oneill!’
‘No! A figure of speech! But Susan, I believe in you, and you should know better than anyone what makes a successful robot. You have all the necessary figures delivered to you on metal film.’
‘I know what makes a successful robot in Turing City,’ conceded Susan. ‘But is that the right way? You can see what it says…’
She read the notice again: WOMEN OF TURING CITY RAMAN AND BORN. BETHE, SEGRE AND STARK. AND NOW WIEN.
The Artemisian model has again proven to be the superior philosophy for building robots. Do you want your line to continue? Do you want your children to build children of their own? Then consider Nyro’s design. Nyro’s children are successful. Nyro’s children now populate almost all the southern continent of Shull. By any measure, Nyro has woven the most flourishing pattern of any robot mind currently existing on Penrose.
Does your husband agree? Or does he still cling to the outdated practices of Turing City? It’s easy for men to talk about the nobility of a certain philosophy. All they do is produce the wire. But, come the night of the making of a mind, it is you that hold in your hands your child’s future well-being. Are you going to throw it away on some arbitrary belief, some vagary of fashion, or are you going to make a mind that really works?
Think about it, Mother. You owe it to your child.
‘I didn’t know they had taken Wien!’ said Susan.
Deya laughed dismissively. ‘Don’t believe everything you read, dear.’
‘I don’t care,’ said Susan weakly. ‘It makes a good point.’
A diesel engine revved once, twice, somewhere behind them.
‘I can’t believe you’re talking like this,’ said Deya. ‘How many robots are there in Turing City at the moment?’
‘In the city itself, or the state as a whole?’
‘The city.’
‘Thirty-three thousand, one hundred and nine.’
‘And how many of them are built according to Artemisian philosophy?’
‘Twenty-one.’
‘Twenty-one! Hah! Well there you go.’
‘That we know of, anyway. But this time last year there were only four.’
‘So what? There’s no choice, Susan. Who is going to sacrifice their child to Artemis in this city? We have so much more going for us. Look!’
She pointed to the high-vaulted roof of the station, the way that the thin, white-painted metal joined in delicate curves, the way that patterns of sunlight coloured by the glass illuminated the scrollwork of the wrought iron.
‘I bet they don’t have that in Artemis,’ said Deya.
‘I bet they don’t. But I wonder if they were saying the same in Wien, just before the invasion.’
‘I told you, Wien has not been invaded. That notice is lying. Anyway, we’re stronger than Wien.’
‘But are we strong enough? It makes me wonder whether it’s worth even making a child any more…’
‘It’s never been a good time to make a child! But you know you’re going to, Susan. You have the capability. You’re not like Nicolas the Coward.’
‘Am I not, Deya? I really don’t know if that’s true any more.’
Susan stared out through the big empty end of the station, out across the wide valley, with its low railway bridges crisscrossing copper-green rivers, looked out at the deep blue sky that covered Shull, and she felt terrified. Some days she had felt as if the rails that emerged from this station were carrying Turing City’s philosophy out to an entire continent. Today she felt as if they were like an open door inviting in whatever darkness was now waiting beyond its borders.
Karel
Everything in the isolation area was painted white: new paint daubed on old, forming uneven patterns and waves on the metal of the floor and walls, white paint gathered on the bolts and rivets holding the building together. The sea could still be heard booming and crashing outside, but now the sound seemed more distant, muffled.
There was a click as Gates locked him in. Now Karel was alone. There were three cells in here, each sealed with a heavy metal door, a tiny porthole placed in its centre. There was a sudden bang, and a rapid staccato hammering started to his right, like a blunt drill skidding across steel. Something was trying to get out, trying to attack. Karel ignored it.
Cell number two was right in front of him. Karel peered through the porthole.
The man inside there was big: a body built for ore mining, with wide shoulders and great shovel-shaped hands. This was a robot that could have formed spontaneously beneath the earth and then dug his way free. His body was red iron, rusty and scarred, but with great long streaks of shiny metal showing where the corrosion had been scraped from his body in his climb to the surface. His eyes were tiny and recessed below a circular brim that ran around the top of the head. His legs were short and squat, ideal for pushing and scrambling through tunnels.
Everything about the man suggested strength and power, and Karel now needed to step inside that cell in his delicate city body. No wonder Gates had told him so little about this client. This was his way of getting his own back, the tough south coast folk teaching the city slicker a thing or two. Gates and Cabeza and the rest would be laughing at the thought of Karel stepping in to meet this giant.
Well, let them, thought Karel. He grasped the handle and pulled open the cell door. The handle only appeared on the outside of the door, and the isolation room was rigged so that only one cell could open at a time.
The man inside remained standing in the middle of his cell as the door opened. Only his eyes moved.
‘Would you like to come out here for a moment?’ asked Karel. ‘Stretch your legs?’
Silence. At first Karel wondered if the man in there couldn’t speak, but then:
‘I am happy to remain here while we talk.’
‘Fine, fine.’ Karel moved forward into the cell. The stranger looked even bigger inside it. His shoulders were almost as wide as the cell itself, so that he would have to take care when turning around. ‘Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Karel, son of Kurtz and Liza. I am a Disputant for the Turing City Immigration Office. Do you understand what that means?’
Again silence. Karel wondered if maybe being so big meant that it took longer for words to reach his mind.
‘They said that you were coming,’ said the other robot, eventually. ‘But I still don’t understand your role.’
Karel had been expecting this. He clasped his hands together, then let go as he felt the deformity in his right hand from where he had hit the Artemisian. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘my job is to speak to robots such as yourself and determine whether or not you are intelligent.’
‘Surely that is a job for a woman? Couldn’t you just get a woman to look at a mind and see if it was fused or not?’
Karel smiled. ‘Usually, yes. But sometimes, even though minds are woven and fused, they just don’t work properly. I’m here to decide if you are a potential Turing Citizen.’
‘Well I can save you the trouble. I’m not.’
Karel smiled again.
‘I wouldn’t be so hasty in claiming that. This is Turing City, you know. There’s no need for lies here.’
‘I’m not lying. Why would I wish to do that?’
‘Some people do. They don’t understand that Turing City is a cooperating city. Any robot able to think is welcome here. Don’t you realize that if you had emerged in Artemis we wouldn’t even be having this conversation? You would already be owned by the state! Every item there, every rock, every scrap of metal, every robot is considered nothing but property.’
‘That would seem proper.’
‘Proper? Really? Take a look at my body. Do you like the paint-work there?’
The stranger’s little eyes peered down at Karel’s chest. He took in the curves of the metal there, the pastel traceries of the paint-work.
