days, cutting across the broken ground, hiding from the aircraft that swooped back and forth over the land, desperately seeking their fallen comrade, but now Kavan was almost there. He could see, rising from behind the low hill ahead, the broken tower that would once have housed the village’s clock.
‘Come on, Kavan! Come on!’
Calor was singing with impatience, singing with too much current. Kavan slipped on broken stones as he made his way around the hillside and, finally, he was there.
The village was built of the incredibly hard, shiny red bricks that only Stark had been able to produce. Any metal had long been stripped away, but the robots of Stark built equally well with stone and metal alike. Tiled roofs remained intact, clear glass windows still stared at Kavan after all these years.
‘In there, in there!’ Calor was dancing, pointing.
Kavan passed through an empty doorway, the missing door no doubt now part of a robot or some other piece of machinery employed by Artemis, and he found himself in a dark space.
‘No lights in here: turn your eyes up!’
Kavan did so. Two infantryrobots and an engineer stood nearby. And beyond them…
‘Don’t come too close yet, Kavan!’ warned one. ‘Your body will still be hot from the sun! You’ll burn it!’
Finally, Kavan found himself face to face with an animal.
It was female. Kavan was surprised, but he could tell by looking that the creature was female. It was something to do with the shape of the body. She was looking at him with her blue eyes. She was frightened, Kavan could tell, but who could blame her for that? She was a fighter, though. Kavan recognized a kindred spirit, and he wondered that a creature so different, so alien, could have something in common with himself.
‘Hello,’ he said. ‘My name is Kavan.’
The creature unleashed a string of gibberish. Kavan watched her pink mouth moving, saw the pink thing inside darting around as she shaped words with air and flesh.
‘Why can’t she speak properly?’ he asked. ‘Is she damaged?’
‘I don’t know,’ said the engineer. ‘I don’t think so. If you listen carefully there is a pattern to what she says, like she’s communicating, but with a different… protocol to the one which we use.’
‘But why speak in a different way to us?’
Kavan was mystified. Speech was speech. It was one of the signs of an intelligent mind, that it could communicate with another.
‘I don’t know. Stefan here has a theory that maybe speech isn’t woven directly into their minds as it is with robot children.’
Kavan thought about it.
‘It sounds plausible. But how are we going to communicate with her?’
‘I’ve been working on that. Watch.’
He held up a hand.
‘Hello,’ he said.
‘He-shhh,’ replied the female.
‘She can’t make the feedback sound,’ explained the engineer. ‘Obviously her voicebox is organic, not electronic.’ He turned back to the female.
‘My name is Valve,’ he said, placing his hand on his chest.
‘Me shhh issh Luphanshh,’ said the female, copying his gesture.
‘Sounds a bit like Luvan,’ said Karel. ‘That’s an Artemisian name.’
The female was still speaking. She was holding her hand to her mouth, the fingers curved, tilting her head back.
‘That means she wants water,’ said Valve. ‘I sent the Scout to get some. She’s fussy. Seawater is no good; it has to be from the stream.’
‘Okay.’ Kavan gazed at the creature, weighing it up.
‘Four of you looking after her, the humans constantly searching for her. I wonder if it’s worth the effort to keep her?’
‘Oh yes, Kavan, I’m sure it is. There is so much to learn.’
‘In other circumstances I may agree with you. I came fifty miles hoping to question this creature, and now I find that I can’t. The longer we hold her in one place, the more likely the animals will find her. We can’t take her out of here now; they would spot her in minutes. You know, we would do better examining her body, learning how it works. We’ve never had a whole one before.’
The creature was looking at him. Her blue eyes were wider, he could see the whites around them.
‘She knows,’ said Kavan. ‘Look at her; she knows what we’re talking about.’
Kavan wasn’t cruel, it wasn’t woven into him. He was merely ruthless. ‘I should make a decision quickly,’ he said. ‘To do otherwise would needlessly prolong this creature’s agony.’
‘Give me a day,’ pleaded Valve. ‘I’m sure I can find out something of worth.’
‘Like what? How the flying craft work? I have engineers that can do that. What their plans are? We know that. They will continue to expand across Shull. I’ve already wasted two days on this. Kill her and put her out of her misery.’
‘No!’ said Valve. ‘They’re different when they’re dead. They’re not like robots! You don’t understand, the whole body just stops working when the mind dies. I need to examine her whilst she’s still alive. Let me block the mouth so she can’t make any noise. I can cut her open, see how the parts move.’
Kavan held the creature’s eye. She did know, she had some inkling about what was being said. She was terrified, and yet, she was fighting not to show it. He admired that.
‘No,’ said Kavan. ‘That would be too cruel. We’re robots, not animals. We kill for a reason, and we do it quickly. We don’t torture. Shoot her in the head, do it fast so she doesn’t know.’
One of the infantryrobots raised its rifle and fired. Grey gel, streaked with red, splattered over Kavan’s body. The dead creature slumped to the ground.
‘It’s a pity,’ said Kavan, stirring one of the creature’s legs with his foot. ‘Maybe later there will be a time to get to know more about them, once we’ve regained control of Artemis City.’
‘If we regain control,’ said Valve. He looked wistfully at the dead creature. ‘I would have like to have spoken some more.’
He brightened up.
‘Still, at least now we get to take a look inside a healthy one.’
Kavan began to wipe the grey gel from his body.
‘What now?’ asked Calor.
‘I think it’s time,’ said Kavan. ‘We’ve spent enough time here on the periphery.’
He looked down at the dead animal. Strange to think that something so soft could cause so much trouble.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I think it’s time to return to Artemis City. Send out the word.’
The evening sky was flushing a deep red: it was the colour of the forge reflected on the roof of the world. The world was warping all around him, its struts and beams under pressure from the animals who had come from the stars.
The city was a slowly heating pyre, out there in the hot summer countryside robots were being moved to rebellion.
Wa-Ka-Mo-Do watched as the lake turned black, saw the red fire withdraw as the sun set behind the city.
The night was approaching.
Even as he waited for the enemy, there on the dark terrace, the stars switching on above him, even as felt the fear that hummed in the city below, even as he struggled with that mix of boredom and anticipation of the coming attack, even then Wa-Ka-Mo-Do still found the human guns incredibly erotic.
There was something about the machinery, the way the impossibly smooth metal slipped seamlessly together, the dark sheen of the alien alloy, the way that it shimmered in star light as if it were slicked in oil. Wa-
