‘Who are you?’ he asked.
‘My name is Goeppert.’
‘Are you the leader of these troops?’
‘They aren’t troops, and I am not their leader. A robot must follow the path woven into its own mind. Some paths lead up into the mountains, and some down to the plains-’
‘No,’ said Kavan. ‘I have marched from the top to the bottom of this continent, and I have conquered all that I have seen. I’ve heard robots issue challenges, I’ve heard robots plead for mercy, and I have heard robots spout philosophy. It all means nothing to me in the end. Tell me who you are, Goeppert.
‘I am a Speaker. Some days ago another army came through these mountains. A small group of Artemisians. They were fleeing a robot named Kavan, they said that he might follow them down this path. They gave us much metal. Gold and silver, platinum, lead. Metals that we do not often see in these mountains. They promised us more if we were to fight him, should he come this way.’
‘And what did you say?’
‘We promised that we would, and we took the metal.’
Kavan shifted, his left side squeaking.
‘I would have promised the same,’ he said. ‘That way I would have the metal. So you will fight us?’
Goeppert held his gaze.
‘We don’t know. Promises made to lowlanders mean nothing.’
Silence in the silver light.
‘Then will you let us pass?’
‘What would you offer us if we were to do so?’
‘The chance to follow Nyro. I go to take control of Artemis.’
‘And if we allowed you to pass, but we chose to remain here?’
‘Then I would take my army to Artemis. If I were successful in my conquest I would someday return here and conquer this land.’
Goeppert smiled.
‘I think you might find that more difficult than you would imagine. Even so, I appreciate your honesty. The world is not an honest place at the moment. Even the sky is wrong.’
‘Zuse flared last night,’ said Kavan. ‘I’ve never seen that before. Is it a feature of these mountains?’
‘No.’
Kavan said nothing.
‘Do you know the whales are dying?’ said Goeppert, suddenly.
Kavan was little unsettled by this change in the conversation. ‘The whales?’ he said. ‘What do you know about whales, living up here in the mountains?’
‘We listen to their songs. They are in constant communication with each other. Didn’t you know this?’
Kavan didn’t care.
‘Goeppert, I travel with an Uncertain Army. It will follow me forwards, it will not go backwards, and if it stands still for too long it will simply evaporate to nothing. I cannot afford to stand here all day, so tell me, will you fight me, or let me pass?’
Goeppert didn’t say a word, but somewhere behind him, somewhere out in the land of Born, robots were detaching themselves from the mountainside, coming into view, forming themselves into lines on the road beyond the bridge.
‘Both,’ said Goeppert. ‘For the moment we will let you pass. We will even give you troops to accompany you. They will learn how to fight, and maybe return here with more metal from the plains.’
‘Good,’ said Kavan.
‘The robots who return here will be stronger for having travelled. They will bring us new knowledge that we will put to use.’
Kavan understood. ‘You seek to temper yourself further.’ He looked back to the far side of the bridge where his troops waited. ‘I feel no such need.’
Spoole gazed at the map of the city.
‘Is this the best they could do?’ he asked.
‘They did well, given the time they had available,’ said General Sandale reprovingly.
Spoole doubted it. Someone had taken a sheet of polished steel and engraved a map upon it. The Basilica was a rectangle in the centre, the forges clustered around it. Beyond it was Half-fused City, the railway stations, the goods yards, the chemical tanks, the construction yards, the making rooms, the barracks, the gasometers and cable walks… All the signs of a busy city. Beyond all that, there was a planned outline of the defences.
He looked at the lines of the trenches, represented on the map. They were well laid out, offering clear, overlapping lines of fire. The railway lines picked their way through them, offering an effective way of keeping the front lines stocked with ammunition.
‘We thought of running lines out beyond the defences,’ said Sandale. ‘Fill a load of wagons with guns and send them out to fire a broadside into Kavan’s troops.’
‘It would only work once, but it could be effective. Still,’ he said grudgingly, ‘the overall plan looks workable.’
But will it be enough? he wondered. He had seen the way the troops had retreated back in the mountains. Kavan hadn’t even had a proper army then. If he reached Artemis City, and he would, then he would do so with troops hardened by the march, and tempered by the fighting they would have been forced into on the way.
Still, Spoole was fighting from his home territory. The land beyond the city was mined, the trenches could be flooded with petrol, trains could be loaded with explosives and sent running on railway lines buried beneath the sand and soil of the plain towards the attacking troops.
That thought gave Spoole pause. Once Artemis City had been connected to the continent by railway lines. Now those joins were severed, the city cut off from the rest of Shull. What were they doing, he wondered. Surely this wasn’t Nyro’s will?
He wasn’t a superstitious robot, none of the Artemisians were; it wasn’t woven into their minds. Nonetheless, he remembered the lights in the sky from the night before, the way that Zuse had lit up. The whole city had stopped work, robots had thronged the streets looking to the skies whilst fires burned unattended in forges and robots remained half assembled.
He pushed the thought from his mind and turned his attention back to the job in hand.
‘We need to do something about the aerial masts,’ said Spoole, pointing to the map. ‘Kavan could take them out easily, and thus cut off our communications.’
He scanned the map.
‘Here,’ he pointed. ‘The northern quarters. Demolish this sector and move the aerials there. They’ll be safe behind the forges and the garrisons.’
He looked up, saw Sandale and the other Generals exchanging looks.
‘Well?’ he said. ‘What’s the matter with you?’
‘Spoole, that’s where we are quartered. Don’t you think our capacity to lead will be severely reduced if we cannot guarantee our bodies are in working order?’
‘Surely we will be quartered here, in the Basilica?’ said Spoole. ‘A little privation during the course of the conflict is normal, surely?’
General Sandale took a long rod of iron and pointed.
‘I suggest we relocate the aerials here, just a little closer to the city than their current position. We leave the area where they stood empty. It should give a good line of fire on any robot that tries to attack across the ground there.’
Spoole inspected the map.
‘It’s not that bad an idea,’ he admitted, ‘but what’s to stop Kavan simply moving his troops onto the land and occupying it?’
The Generals exchanged looks once more.
