‘Where are we going, Kavan? There is no shelter until we get to Stark! Or should we head north, back to the mountains?’
‘No. We need to spread out, make it harder for them to find us.’
‘Let’s stop here.’
Kavan was so tired.
‘Very well,’ he said. ‘Five minutes.’
They stopped. Kavan looked around. Ten of them. Himself and Calor, seven infantryrobots and one other Scout. All of them scratched and pierced by shrapnel.
‘We need a forge,’ said Kavan.
‘Look,’ said Calor. She pointed up into the sky over the city.
The piercing noise had been there all the time they had been running. Now they stopped they had time to notice it again. It shrieked through the metal, it set the inside of the head ringing. They watched the two dark shapes that descended through the rain clouds. They looked like rolls of hot lead, long tubes rolled in the hands by a child and then flattened.
‘That can’t be right,’ said Kavan. ‘My eyesight needs recalibrating.’
‘No,’ said Calor. ‘The larger craft is over nine hundred feet long. The smaller one is six hundred.’
‘What’s holding them up?’
‘I don’t know.’
What must it be like for the robots in the city, wondered Kavan? To look up and see those vast shapes hanging above. Expecting them to fall at any moment.
The front of the larger craft began to flicker, and the effect was taken up by the smaller.
All around the great plain, Kavan sensed the stillness as robots that had been running moments before came to a halt and turned to watch what was happening.
The two craft seemed to be speaking to each other using yellow, green and white lights. First the front of the larger craft would flicker, then the smaller craft flickered in reply. The conversation went on for a few moments, and then, in a series of shining bands, the lights spread backwards over the surface of the two craft, now joined by red, orange and yellow, the glowing pattern gradually encompassing the whole extent of the two ships.
The lights increased in intensity, their brightness lighting up the plain, sending dark shadows streaming out behind the watching robots.
Kavan saw the way that Calor looked at them, her shell reflecting the patterns, and he realized something. The craft were big and they were bright, and though they were much smaller than the city, they seemed to dwarf it. Whoever was flying those craft, it seemed to Kavan, was sending out a message.
We are here. And we are in control.
Susan and Spoole stood by the window, gazing up at the enormous craft that floated overhead. The room was illuminated in red and green, the patterns of light played across the chequered floor.
‘It’s bigger than the Basilica,’ said Spoole. ‘What have the Generals done?’
‘Made peace with a bigger bully,’ said Susan. ‘You were right, Spoole. It’s too late to fight these people. The other Generals have outmanoeuvred you.’
‘You’re giving up so easily?’
‘It makes no difference to me,’ said Susan. ‘I don’t care who’s oppressing me.’
‘You don’t mean that,’ said Spoole.
‘Spoole, I don’t care. Welcome to my forge. Welcome to the world I have lived in since you and your Choarh state destroyed mine.’
Spoole couldn’t take his eyes from the vast shape hanging overhead. Every surface in the room danced to the movement of its lights.
‘Maybe the Generals were right,’ he said, softly. ‘What else could they do?’
‘I think they were right,’ said Susan, and a vicious pleasure welled up inside her. ‘What does that say about Nyro, Spoole?’
Spoole didn’t answer.
‘She’s dead, Spoole!’ Susan couldn’t keep the savage joy from her voice. All the suffering she had endured, now was the time she could pay some of it back. ‘Nyro has gone, Spoole. If not now, then in a few days or a few weeks. The Generals have given the city away to a greater power, and from now on you’ll be playing by its rules!’
She laughed.
Spoole turned and looked at her, and his eyes were bright.
‘What now, Spoole? What will you do now?’
He didn’t reply, he raised his hands slightly, as if he was going to attack her. She didn’t care. She was having her revenge.
‘Well, Spoole? What now that Nyro has gone?’
He lowered his hands.
‘What now?’ he repeated. ‘Susan, you’re right. Nyro has no place in this city any more. This is not the place I was made to lead. I’m free to go.’
The vicious smile faded from Susan’s face as he spoke.
‘Yes,’ said Spoole. ‘Free to go.’
‘No,’ said Susan, disappointed to be cheated this easily of her revenge, poor though it was. ‘No you’re not. Stay here, Spoole. Stay here and see how pointless it all is. Everything that you fought for, everything that you did to me and my family. All for nothing.’
But all the doubt had gone from Spoole. He was his old self again, calm and assured.
‘Would that make you happy? Don’t be so silly Susan. No. We need to go now. Both of us.’
‘Both of us? But why should I come with you?’
‘Because this is wrong. The Generals are wrong. You asked me for help not two minutes ago. Well, I’m offering it. Come on, we’re going to find out what happened to your friend. And then, maybe, we will have some proof of what it is that the Generals have done. We’re going to show Artemis City that this is not Nyro’s way.’
The dark surface of Lake Ochoa was flecked red with burning mirrors of the rising sun. Wa-Ka-Mo-Do and the robots ran along its shore, metal feet slipping on the pebbles, kicking them, sending them dancing across the water. To their left a railway train burned: long tanker wagons were torn apart; they belched black diesel smoke into the sky. Wa-Ka-Mo-Do saw the line of bullet holes down the side of them. Those wouldn’t have caused an explosion, he reflected. Those strange craft must have also been firing incendiaries.
Past the burning train, metal moving to a steady pulse, they turned from the lake shore and headed to the City Gate, clearly visible before them now, wide open and guarded by four humans wearing green panelling. They carried rifles, but not like the ones Wa-Ka-Mo-Do had seen before. These weapons were shorter and constructed mainly of plastic. What little metal there was, was of an odd alloy that felt strangely transparent to Wa-Ka-Mo-Do’s senses. Those guns made him feel uncomfortable. They were different – alien. Just like the humans.
Their attitude and demeanour had changed since yesterday, he noted.