Karel rose to his feet and, electromuscles bare from the knee down, walked to Melt.
‘Come on, I’ll help you get this panelling off,’ he offered.
‘You can’t,’ said Melt. ‘It’s welded to the electromuscle.’
Karel felt a wobble in his gyros. He peered closer at Melt’s dark metal body, looking at the faint lines where the seams of the panelling had melted together.
‘What happened to you?’ he murmured.
‘I don’t remember,’ said Melt, and once again Karel had the impression that this wasn’t quite true.
‘You know,’ said Karel, ‘I used to work as an immigration officer, back in Turing City.’
‘What is that?’
‘I used to speak to people, communicate with them. See if they were suitable to join our state. I got know when people weren’t telling the full truth.’
‘Really?’ said Melt. Karel wondered for a moment, but didn’t press the point. He ran a hand down the seam in Melt’s arm, feeling the mix of metals there.
‘What are you made of?’ he asked. ‘I can feel cast iron in there, and lead, and steel. How can you walk around in that body? It must weigh so much! We should just remove your mind and start again.’ Karel glanced back towards the fire. ‘There isn’t enough metal here, but I’m sure if we head back to the battlefields we’ll find a body there we can use. Or maybe we can put it together from parts. These Artemisian bodies are pretty standard,’ and he rapped his knuckles on his chest for effect as he spoke.
‘There’s no point,’ said Melt. ‘My coil is fused to this body. I’m trapped in here.’
Karel felt as if his gyros had been dropped in the fire, as if they were melting, spinning out of true, jamming. He had seen death and destruction on the battlefields of Artemis. Nothing had been quite as nasty as this.
‘So as you can see,’ said Melt, ‘there is no point waiting for me. Tend to yourself. That body needs cleaning and adjustment. We will travel easier once you are repaired.’
‘No way,’ said Karel. ‘Not with you fighting against that body to make every step. Come over here to the fire. I’m good with metal, all Turing Citizens are. My wife was… is… much better than I. When we find her she will fix you up properly. In the meantime, if we are ever going to get to her, I need you working as best you can. You’re a soldier, aren’t you?’
‘I think so.’
‘Well, there you are. We’ll need to fight, I’m sure. Now sit down here on this stool while I see what I can do.’
‘I can’t sit down. I can’t bend my legs enough.’
Karel thought about that. Melt couldn’t even sit down to rest from the weight of his body. What other hardships did he suffer?
‘Okay,’ said Karel. ‘We’ll start on the legs.’
He selected a piece of metal from the pile by the fire, and started to shape it with his hands, folding and pulling it, making it into a crude knife. ‘I’ll see if I can open up these seams a little. Maybe plane away some of the metal from your body, reduce the weight a little. The least we can do is loosen you up, restore some movement to your body.’
He thrust the proto-knife into the fire. Oddly enough, he felt quite positive. For the first time in months, he was doing something useful. He was helping someone. It felt good.
Sangrel was built on a rocky plug of stone thrust clear of the rolling grassy countryside that surrounded it. Centuries ago, robots had chipped away at the natural outcrop, making its walls more sheer, carving steps and passageways into the slopes leading to the summit. They had dressed stone to make bricks and flags and used it in building gates and archways and walls, making a maze of passageways and courtyards overlooked by firing steps and loupes, the better to defend the city they planned to grow on the flattened top of the hill. Sangrel was a fortress at its foundations, but something more beautiful had risen from them.
Wa-Ka-Mo-Do had watched the multicoloured roofs and domes of the city rising above the city ramparts as he approached, gradually losing sight of them as the railway line tucked itself into the shadow of the hill upon which Sangrel stood. As the train slowed, squeezing between the cliffs and the clear blue waters of Lake Ochoa. Wa-Ka-Mo-Do looked across the lake to the dark wooded hill that stood on the far bank. The surrounding hills seemed to have drawn back to leave it standing on its own, as if even they knew of the stone temples that hid amongst the dark green foliage of the Mound of Eternity, those temples that had made the place infamous throughout the whole of Yukawa.
Wa-Ka-Mo-Do stepped from the train into the shade cast by the Mound of Sangrel. He wanted to turn, to wave goodbye to Jai-Lyn, who he was sure would be watching him from the carriage, but protocol forbade that. Further down the platform, a captain stood waiting, four soldiers standing to attention behind him.
Only four, noted Wa-Ka-Mo-Do. He wondered if this was a deliberate slight, given his low parentage. Before he had time to ponder on this, the captain stepped forward and saluted.
‘Wa-Ka-Mo-Do. Welcome to Sangrel. My name is Ka-Lo-Re-Harballah. I must apologize for the paucity of your welcome, but there are precious few troops to spare here in Sangrel.’
Wa-Ka-Mo-Do took an immediate liking to Ka-Lo-Re-Harballah. He was young, his body work suggested nobility, but there was an honesty about him that Wa-Ka-Mo-Do recognized straightaway.
‘And so you decided that my reception was less than essential, given the circumstances.’
‘No, Honoured Commander, but-’
‘And that was an excellent decision. I can see that you are a robot who understands the exigencies of command. Now, I would be obliged if you would escort me to the command rooms.’
‘Certainly, Honoured Commander.’ Ka-Lo-Re-Harballah stood to attention and about-turned. Wa-Ka-Mo-Do was impressed to see the four soldiers do the same in perfect synchronization. At the same moment, there was a roar of a diesel engine, and the train began to roll from the station. Wa-Ka-Mo-Do watched it go, rounding the far corner of Sangrel Mound as it began the journey from Sangrel province, heading for the marshland that surrounded distant Ka.
‘We will enter the city through the Emperor’s Gate,’ said Ka-Lo-Re-Harballah, indicating the tall arch behind the railway station, the underside carved with shapes of hanging icicles. Centuries ago, the commander of Sangrel displayed his power by having ice brought from many miles away and hung from the gates, glistening in even in the hottest summers, for no other reason than to show that he could.
‘You occupy the Copper Master’s house, facing onto Smithy Square.’
‘The Copper Master’s house? An exalted position indeed. With views over the western terrace and the lake, I believe.’
‘You are certainly well informed, Honoured Commander.’
Wa-Ka-Mo-Do had read up on his command before leaving the Silent City. However, a question remained.
‘But what of the Emperor’s Palace? Surely that is the traditional residence for the commander of Sangrel?’
Ka-Lo-Re-Harballah gave Wa-Ka-Mo-Do a sideways look.
‘That building has been given as embassy to the animals, as you are of course aware, Honoured Commander.’ The young robot seemed almost ashamed by his answer.
‘Of course,’ answered Wa-Ka-Mo-Do. It was unheard of, by any protocol, for the Emperor to give up any of his residences, for was not the Emperor supreme? What signal did this send to the robots of Sangrel, seeing that the animals had, quite visibly, been placed above the Emperor himself?
At that moment something appeared from the gates of the city that drove all other thoughts from Wa-Ka-Mo-Do’s mind. He found himself slowing to a halt, turning to watch.
Three of them, walking upright like robots, walking through the Emperor’s Gate. They strode beneath the stone icicles without so much as a second glance, as if they were peasants heading from the mine after their shift, not as if they were honoured guests to take this most glorious of paths.
Wa-Ka-Mo-Do didn’t mean to stare, but he couldn’t help himself. They moved like robots. Almost like robots, but with less… formality? Was that the word? They strode through the sunlight as if they weren’t really part of their surroundings. Perhaps they weren’t, they were strangers to this world, after all. There was something so odd about them though, something almost ethereal. Was it simply because they weren’t made of metal? Look at them, clad in green-cloth panelling, hands and faces emerging from the strange material that they wore, their flesh an odd colour, and so different, even to each other. Two of them were pale pink, the other a brown colour. An unnatural hue, no metal was of that shade.
‘Honoured Commander?’
Wa-Ka-Mo-Do was embarrassed by his rudeness.
‘Thank you, Ka-Lo-Re-Harballah,’ he said, lowering his face in shame. ‘I did not mean to stare. Only, I have never seen the animals.’
‘One never quite gets used to them, Honoured Commander. There is an emptiness about them. You can see them with your eyes, and hear them with your ears, but you cannot sense their metal. They seem so insubstantial…’
Wa-Ka-Mo-Do turned to watch the animals as they walked down past the railway station.