‘I wish he was,’ said Melt, and Karel could hear the longing in his voice.
Wa-Ka-Mo-Do crossed to the Copper Master’s house, his head spinning with questions. The sky was clear, and he gazed up at the night moon, wondering at Rachael’s words. So Zuse was made of metal. What was so strange about that?
The Copper Guard stood to attention as he passed through the doors into his residence. A nervous looking aide was waiting in the hallway.
‘Honoured Commander, your presence is requested in the Copper Room.’
‘Later,’ said Wa-Ka-Mo-Do, ‘I have work to attend to.’
‘I’m sorry, Honoured Commander, but your presence is requested.’
The aide looked terrified at having to contradict Wa-Ka-Mo-Do, and no surprise. Wa-Ka-Mo-Do himself was growing irritated by the constant directions he had been given since he arrived here. He was beginning to realize that the post of Commander offered more restraints than it did freedoms.
‘Who wishes to speak to me?’ he asked, but the aide had retreated into the depths of the house.
For a moment Wa-Ka-Mo-Do considered ignoring the summons, but curiosity got the better of him.
He padded past robots, their eyes glowing in the dim light, heading for the heart of the building.
The Copper Room was in the centre of the Copper Master’s house. It had no windows and only two doors. One led out into the main building. The other was concealed and led down through the rocks upon which Sangrel was built; a secret passage, an escape route built in less enlightened times. The Copper Room was the ideal place for holding private meetings. Wa-Ka-Mo-Do stepped into the room and felt his gyros lurch. No wonder the aide had looked so nervous.
Three robots stood in the middle of the room. Female, so obviously female that Wa-Ka-Mo-Do felt the wire stir within him. They were the most beautifully constructed robots he had ever seen, their bodies bent into curves of perfect symmetry. He could feel their metal from here, the mix of platinum and gold, steel and aluminium shone like starlight across his senses. He wanted to move closer to them, just to touch them, just to have them touch him, to pull his metal from his body…
He suppressed the thought. What would they want with his metal? They were Vestal Virgins; they only worked on minds that had already been twisted by others!
But it was so hard… Look at them, so beautiful, they seemed to shine all by themselves. Their faces were so delicate. Look at those smiles, so knowing, so calculating, so pretty…
‘Wa-Ka-Mo-Do’ said one, and her voice was the sweetest notes of copper bells. ‘Honoured Commander of Sangrel. We wish to speak to you.’
‘Really?’ said Wa-Ka-Mo-Do. ‘Is it important? I am very busy.’
‘Are you?’ said a second robot, her voice a little deeper than the first, still it resonated in Wa-Ka-Mo-Do’s chest. ‘Zil-Wa-Tem is dead and yet the market place runs as normal.’
Zil-Wa-Tem, thought Wa-Ka-Mo-Do, and he remembered that was the name of the robot who had been found stitched into the animal’s skin in the market.
‘I would have expected the city to ring with the cries of the grieving,’ said the third woman, her voice the deepest of all. ‘I would have expected to see the minds of men and women arranged in a circle by the entrance, their coils crushed. I would have expected to see the smoke of a hundred fires filling the air, the bare electromuscles of the captured held over them in order that confessions be extracted.’
‘Or maybe we misjudge our Commander,’ said the first of the Vestal Virgins. ‘Maybe we underestimate his cruelty. Perhaps he intends instead to play the silent game, to raise fear by remaining still for a time before making a move?’
‘Perhaps you are right,’ continued the second. ‘Perhaps he wishes to request our help? To ask us to steal children away in the night and to work on their minds. Twist them so that they don’t recognize their own parents. Or maybe to make it so they are filled with the urge to disassemble themselves slowly whilst their mothers look on in despair.’
‘That must be it,’ said the third. ‘Then the word of the Honoured Commander’s displeasure would quickly be spread and the names of the perpetrators of the crime brought to the Copper Guard-’
‘Silence!’ said Wa-Ka-Mo-Do.
‘Silence?’ said the first, her tone one of laughing delight. ‘He orders us to silence? We think he must have forgotten his place.’
‘I have not!’ said Wa-Ka-Mo-Do. ‘I am the Commander of Sangrel, and it is my prerogative to decide how to handle this situation.’
‘Handle this situation? Perhaps we misunderstood? Are the perpetrators already caught, their bodies filled with molten lead as an example to others?’
‘You know they’re not,’ said Wa-Ka-Mo-Do. ‘But what you have described won’t achieve anything. There are robots out there who have already lost everything. It won’t take much to push them over the edge into full-scale insurrection. What then?’
‘Then the Commander of the Emperor’s Army will have no choice but to order the death of all the robots of this province.’
‘Of course. And if some humans get caught in the fighting?’
‘Then the Commander of the Emperor’s Army will be held accountable.’
Wa-Ka-Mo-Do spoke with an authority he did not feel.
‘Humans will get killed if we pursue your course of action. I know this. I come from the poor lands, far from the Silent City and the court of the Emperor. I’ve seen what happens when robots have nothing to lose. Believe me, my methods are the right ones.’
One of the Virgins held up something for inspection. Wa-Ka-Mo-Do gazed at the object in fascination. It was like a mind, but twisted into the wrong shape.
‘This is the neighbour of Zil-Wa-Tem. She sells cleansed oil,’ said the woman.
‘You mean she’s still alive?’ said Wa-Ka-Mo-Do, unable to hide his horror.
‘She will live as long as we decide.’
‘But what has she done?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Then why punish her?’
‘Because she did nothing. She did not defend her neighbour, or the honour of Sangrel.’
‘Is she in pain, her mind twisted like that?’
‘Agony.’
Almost too fast to follow, Wa-Ka-Mo-Do drew his sword and sliced it through the twisted metal. The Vestal Virgin holding the former mind looked at the two pieces, the cut ends of wire shining like little mirrors, and then dropped it to the floor.
‘You interfere with our work?’ said one of them, in the softest, most beautiful voice.
‘This is my city. You interfere with mine.’
The three women exchanged glances.
‘Perhaps you are right, Wa-Ka-Mo-Do.’
‘Perhaps I am.’
‘There is to be an attack tomorrow night. That mind that you destroyed told us this.’