swung off erratically. The craft was spinning wildly across the sky.
Calor had made it inside.
The luminous green craft twisted this way and that, headed downwards, pulled up at the last moment, lost height again, and dived into the ground, ploughing a furrow of sand. The great blades on the top touched the earth, and Kavan ducked as they tore themselves apart in a reckless fury of metal. Fragments of the blades flew across the plain, tearing more grooves in the sand.
Smoke emerged from the stricken ship. Kavan was running towards it again, going to the aid of Calor. If she had survived.
His muscles hummed as he loped forward, watching for movement from within. Yellow flames slowly slid their way down the rear of the craft.
Nothing. No! A jagged hole was torn open in the front of the craft and something emerged. Something blackened and twisted. Kavan caught a glimpse of silver and realized it was Calor. She fell to the ground, struggled to get up again.
Her body was burned and twisted, the left side of her chest riddled with bullet holes.
‘Get away, Kavan,’ she said. ‘That thing is full of petrol.’
Kavan thrust a shoulder beneath her arm, and half walked, half carried her away from the craft.
‘It might explode,’ she said.
‘You’re too valuable,’ said Kavan.
‘Now I know I’m mad,’ said Calor. ‘Metal must be twisted out of true. I just heard Kavan say that I was too valuable. I’m nothing but metal.’
‘At the moment you’re one of the few robots who know about human craft,’ said Kavan. ‘You’re more valuable than mere metal for the next few days at least.’
The noise of the flames behind them died away. They turned to see white foam oozing from all the cracks in the stricken craft, saw it smothering the flames.
‘Clever,’ said Kavan. ‘Very clever.’
‘Not if you’re stuck inside the craft with it. Not if you need to burn oxygen to make energy like the animals do.’
‘It looks safe to go in now,’ said Kavan.
‘How long do you think we have?’
‘Half an hour at most.’
Kavan raised a hand. A mile away on the plain, the sand and grit began to stir. Ada emerged from the ground, followed by three other blue-panelled robots. They hurried towards the craft.
While the engineers got to work on the craft, Kavan helped Calor strip away the damaged panelling from her chest. They both worked on the mechanism inside.
‘You keep yourself in good repair,’ said Kavan, approvingly.
‘Thank you. I wish I had some oil.’
‘Here,’ said Kavan, producing a small canister. ‘I’ll do it.’ He squeezed a couple of drops onto the mechanism in her chest, and the part that had been scorched by flames resumed its regular motion.
‘You know they will send other craft to destroy that one? They don’t want us finding out their secrets.’
‘You said we had half an hour.’
‘They may come sooner.’
‘Then we’ll run.’
Time passed as the pair of them worked on, the engineers busy nearby.
‘You’ll be okay, I think,’ said Kavan finally, looking at the streaks the acid had burned into the chest panelling they had carefully slid back into place.
‘I’ll be fine. It’s only metal.’
‘I know that.’
Ada appeared at his side.
‘Kavan, we’re ready to go.’
The other engineers were moving away from the stricken craft, carrying various parts they had salvaged from the machine. Two long cylinders, about half the height of a robot; a metal canister that sloshed with liquid, two thick cables emerging from one end; several smaller pieces of equipment. The engineers held them carefully, reverently. All of the pieces had that overly complicated design of human machinery, too many wires, too many parts.
‘Come on,’ said Kavan. ‘Back beneath the ground.’
‘Too late!’ called Calor, looking up into the distance.
Kavan followed her gaze. He couldn’t see anything yet, but he wasn’t a Scout. ‘Should we run?’ he asked.
As soon as he said it he saw a straight line, ruled across the sky, foreshortening. No noise. It was travelling faster than-
The missile hit the human craft with less noise than he had expected. More of a crack than a bang. Kavan realized that Ada was still standing, watching what was going on.
‘They use depleted uranium for the shell tips. I know that. I think there is a magnesium charge inside, but there is something else there as well, I’m sure. Look how it burns!’
The craft was already glowing white hot, the metal collapsing in on itself. She took a step towards it. Kavan pulled her back by the arm.
‘Look out, Ada!’
Two lines of jumping sand ran towards them. Ada watched them approach, then stepped out of their way, quite unconcerned.
‘They have too little control at that distance,’ she explained. ‘You can tell by the spacing between the bullet impacts.’
‘Ada, you mad Tok, get down.’
‘They won’t come closer,’ said Ada. ‘They’ll be worried we’ll bring them down too, just like we did the first craft.’
Kavan got to his feet, wondering at what was happening here. It wasn’t like him to shelter whilst others walked around calmly. Two more lines of bullets tore across the sand, and the blue robots stepped around them once more. Behind Kavan the burning craft was collapsing into a molten pool, fusing the sand around itself. Thin smoke rose into the bright day.
‘What did you find?’ asked Kavan. The bullets were curving around again, coming back towards them, then suddenly, they just stopped.
‘It’s hard to say,’ said Ada. ‘The mechanisms make sense, up to a point, but there are parts missing, or parts that shouldn’t function as they do. I’m certain it’s all down to this.’
She held out a flat square object. Fine gold wires were arranged in patterns around the side.
‘I think it’s the human equivalent of a mind. A metal mind, I mean, a robot mind. It’s made of stone and metal.’
‘It’s like a mirror on the top.’
‘If you look at it under a lens you can see incredibly complicated patterns there. Finer than a woman could weave, more complex than a man could make.’
Kavan turned the object this way and that.
‘We can copy most parts of the human craft, but without a suitable mind, I don’t think we can make it fly.’
Calor had little interest for the alien machinery. She was built to run and fight and look into the distance. She was doing so now.
‘Kavan,’ she said. ‘Something’s coming.’
Kavan saw it too. A dark craft with wide wings, two large engines mounted at the tail. It moved slowly but deliberately, flying low over the surface of the plain.
‘What do we do?’ asked Calor.
‘I’d like to try something,’ said Ada. ‘Would you mind?’
Kavan looked on as two of the engineers stepped forward. Things were changing so quickly. For years he had
