barely paid the blue robots any attention. The engineers had always arrived after the main attack. But now, with the arrival of the humans, they were taking on a new role, stepping forward and taking the lead whilst he and his robots stood and watched. Just like now. Two of the engineers were handling one of the cylinders they had retrieved from the stricken craft, pointing it towards the approaching aeroplane. Kavan could see the animal in the clear glass cockpit at the front of the craft, he heard the whistling of the two engines, saw the dark holes of the guns as the front of the craft turned to face him, heard the rippling smack and crack as bullets stitched a line towards him.
‘Ada, are you sure about this…’
Then there was a snap, a flare, and a whoosh of flame. A missile crowning a line of light, it travelled from the cylinder the two robots were aiming and connected with the craft just below the cockpit. The glass bubble filled with orange-yellow flame; there was an explosion all along the fuselage. The wings of the craft folded down and the whole thing fell to the ground, skidding towards them.
‘Well done, Ada,’ said Kavan, genuinely impressed. ‘Well done, all of you.’
He turned to see one of the engineers lying on the ground, most of the area below the chest burned away. Ada was carefully removing the head and the coil from the body.
‘He’s okay,’ she said, ‘but it means we can carry less.’
‘Never mind. There will be more craft, I’m sure.’
‘Come on,’ said Calor, dancing from foot to foot. ‘We really need to get away now.’
‘Sure. But you can carry something, too.’ said Ada.
Kavan was impressed at the way the engineer had assumed command. He didn’t mind. Whatever was best for Artemis.
He wondered if Sandale and the rest of the Generals would see it that way.
Susan
‘This way,’ said Spoole, leading Susan deeper into the Half-fused City. When the Storm Trooper had chased her through here before, the place had been deserted. Now the area was teaming with robots.
‘What’s going on?’ Spoole asked a passing infantryrobot.
‘We’re relaying the railway lines,’ said a soldier. ‘Now that Kavan has gone, the wall is coming down and we’re plugging ourselves back into the continent. Artemis is getting ready to march again.’
‘Kavan is gone? You’re certain of that?’
‘The animals cleared the area, didn’t they?’
‘And you’re happy about that?’ said Susan.
‘There is neither happiness nor unhappiness,’ replied the infantryrobot, ‘there is just Artemis.’
‘They’re laying the lines into the animals’ base,’ said Susan. ‘You could see them putting down the ballast from the Basilica.’
They picked their way through the streets, the yellow flares and lights not quite holding back the darkness of the old buildings, the march and stamp and hurry of the troops not quite dispelling the feeling of stillness around them. In the distance, rising over the other buildings, Susan caught sight of the tops of the two shot towers.
‘Why do they keep this place standing?’ she asked. ‘It seems so out of place, here in the middle of Artemis City. Surely there is no sentimentality for the past in Nyro’s world?’
‘None,’ said Spoole. ‘This is where the unfused and the half-fused work. Robots that live indefinitely. They serve their purpose. But this place shrinks a little every year, as we find new ways to do things. Down here.’
He led her down a narrow side street. Ahead of them was a small building, one storey high, barely big enough to hold a family forge. Its red-brick walls were dark and shiny in the dim light. It had no other features save for a plain steel door and a small smoking chimney. The other buildings around it were taller, they seemed to have edged away from it, their windows gazed distrustfully at their smaller cousin.
‘What is it?’ asked Susan.
‘The database,’ said Spoole. Susan followed him to the door. She noticed how well trodden the cobbled road was; there was a smooth path worn into the round stones, heading for the door ahead.
‘There is frequent talk about shutting this place down, of recycling the metal that lies inside, but they have yet to come up with a better way of storing records.’ Spoole laughed suddenly, a hollow sound in that still place. ‘Who knows, the database may outlast even Artemis City. All that we have been will still be recorded here, even when the rest of the metal of Artemis is spun into shape and carried to the stars by the animals.’
And at that he knocked upon the steel door. There was no handle, Susan noticed.
‘Open up,’ he commanded. ‘It’s Spoole!’
For a moment, Susan wondered if Spoole would be obeyed. What would he do if not, she wondered? The door without a handle was pushed open from inside and Susan looked into a single room, dimly lit by a yellow bulb. A Storm Trooper waited there, body humming with power.
‘Hello, Spoole.’
‘Hello, Geraint.’
Susan followed Spoole inside. She felt trapped in this tiny space, she wanted to be safely outside, under the bright stars that filled the night above.
‘You bring an infantryrobot, Spoole? That’s not allowed.’ He looked at Susan. ‘Wait outside.’
Susan looked coolly back at the Storm Trooper, intimidated though she was by his heavy black body. She could feel his current even from here.
‘I am leader of this city,’ said Spoole. ‘Stand aside.’
‘A leader of the city,’ said Geraint, but he stood aside anyway. Behind him a set of iron steps spiralled into the ground.
‘How many people are down there at the moment?’ asked Spoole.
‘Only a couple of filing clerks. Things have been quiet since the animals arrived. Who wants to look to the past, when the future is setting up base right outside the city?’
‘Who indeed?’ said Spoole.
With the tap, tap, tap of metal feet on iron treads, he began to descend the stairs.
‘Haven’t we met before?’ said the Storm Trooper, looming over Susan. ‘You’re a conscript. I can tell. What body did you used to wear?’
Susan had a memory of the making rooms, kneeling before robots like this. Had she made a child with him? The thought filled her with loathing.
‘Aren’t we all Artemisians?’ she replied, following Spoole down the steps, resisting the urge to strike the huge black brute.
The steps spiralled through three turns and deposited Susan in a brick room, about the same size as the one above. There were two facing doorways leading through to similar rooms. An iron pipe led from a small stove up into the ceiling. A robot stood in the middle of the space, eyes glowing a weak grey. Unfused, she realized. Here was a robot whose mother had tied the end of its mind into a knot, making a mind doomed neither to die in forty short years nor to ever properly think or feel.
‘Nettie,’ said Spoole. ‘We’re looking for a robot named Nettie.’
The robot pointed to the right-hand door.
‘If that robot exists, its record will be through that door.’ The robot lowered its head, losing all interest in them.
Spoole was already walking through the right-hand door. Susan followed to find a similar room with two more exits, this time, though, one went down another set of stairs. A second unfused robot waited. It looked up as Spoole approached.
‘We’re looking for a robot named Nettie.’
‘If that robot exists, its record will be down the steps,’ replied the robot, pointing. Spoole was already descending. She followed him, only to see the robot in the next room pointing down once more.
‘How far down does this go?’ she called.
‘I’ve heard fifteen levels,’ said Spoole.
Susan calculated.
‘That’s 32, 768 robots down here. That is if this is a true binary tree we’re traversing. That’s almost as many robots as lived in Turing City!’
‘There are only three hundred and two, I think,’ said Spoole. ‘Each node robot holds several thousand records
