‘“That looks like the den of a mugger snake,” said Khalah. “Only bigger. Much bigger.”
‘“It is,” said Eric. “Go down it, all of you.”
‘“But it will strip our metal away and plate it to its own body!”
‘“Yes. That’s how it feeds. It has grown so large that its body stretches nearly to the bottom of this mountain. It curls around inside the rock below us, but it is so big it can no longer hunt as it used to. So now it brings its prey towards itself.”
‘“But that’s impossible,” said Khalah. “Eric, I’m walking towards the hole. I don’t want to! Stop me!”
‘“I can’t, Khalah. I remember now. This is how it got so large. It’s twisted into our minds to follow the will of the mugger snake. All of us. All of the robots on the plain.”
‘“But how?”
‘“It made us! All of us! Simply as way of extending its range. A way to search out metal beyond the mountains. It made robots and sent us out into the world. And every so often it makes a robot such as me to bring prey back to itself. This is how it finds new metal.”
‘“No!” cried Khalah, and a sound of hissing emerged from her voicebox. “I thought you loved me!”
‘“I do, Khalah. But this is more important than that.”
‘Ahead of them, the first of the robots had stepped over the lip of the borehole, falling into the mugger snake’s maw.
‘“More important?” shrieked Khalah. “How can you say that?”
‘“Well, maybe not more important. Maybe it is an underlying truth on top of which all of our other thoughts dance.”
‘“No! I can’t believe that!”
‘“Well, you are walking into the hole,” observed Eric. “We both are.”
‘And they both stepped over the lip.’
‘The story can’t be true,’ said Susan. ‘If there were no survivors, how did the story get told?’
‘I don’t think that story is true,’ said Karel. ‘It’s an illustration. A warning from the past. A warning that none of us will know the truth until the end. And on that day we will walk unresisting towards the pit, because that is our purpose. That was what we were made for.’
Susan gazed at him with horror, the wire cooling in her hands.
‘You allowed me to make a child, knowing this? Knowing that we were all doomed?’
‘No!’ said Karel. ‘No! That may have been the way we were made, but we are better than that. We can be better than that! Look at Turing City, and all that we achieved! Even Artemis City showed how much robots can achieve through sheer will.
‘That’s why we need to travel north and search out the truth Susan! Because even if someone did make us, and even if they meant us to be nothing more than raw material for some other cause, that doesn’t mean we have to accept it! There is no such thing as destiny, Susan. At least, there doesn’t have to be.’
Susan gazed at him as she cut free the end of the wire that came from his body. She quickly tied it off in the fuse.
‘Here, Karel,’ she said. ‘Here’s our child. Meet Emily.’
‘Hello, Emily,’ said Karel, slipping the newly made mind in the little body they had prepared. They watched as the eyes glowed into life, a beautiful golden yellow.
‘Hello, Emily,’ said Susan.
Karel smiled. Above him, the metal face of the night moon reflected light down onto the plain.
‘Hello Emily,’ repeated Karel. ‘My little girl. You know, don’t you? Because Mummy wove it into you. You know.’
‘What does she know?’ asked Susan.
‘She knows that we don’t have to accept anything. No matter who made us, no matter what our purpose is supposed to be, we don’t have to accept it.’
He gazed into Emily’s golden eyes as he spoke.
‘And we won’t, will we?’
