‘Two of us then,’ said Melt. ‘You must have flown up here in a craft. I can’t imagine animals walking this far. Get us closer to Artemis City and we’ll help you.’
‘We can’t take you too close,’ said Brian.
‘Why not?’
‘It’s another state’s… trading area,’ said Ruth. ‘We have agreements.’
‘I think I understand,’ said Melt. ‘Just take us down to the plains, then.’
‘Very well,’ said Brian, and he held out a hand. Melt took it and moved it up and down.
‘You have met humans before,’ said Ruth. ‘In that case, if it’s all the same to you, we will speak to Karel.’
Karel was too heavy for the humans’ flimsy chairs. He didn’t mind, he sat on the rocky ground amongst the curved iron buildings as these creatures from so far away asked him questions.
Such strange questions, at once so obvious but so difficult to put an answer to. Where did robots come from, how did they make children, what was the difference between a robot and an animal? Why were there two moons, why was there metal, how long do they live, what’s the difference between a male and female robot?
And then, the oddest of them all.
‘Take a look around the village, Karel. Tell us what you see.’
‘Why?’
‘We want to see this world through your eyes.’
Karel looked around. From here he could see nothing but sky, he was lost in the cupped hands of the mountain, watched only by the sun. No one knew of this place, but it still seemed odd that it had remained undetected for fifty years, if not the hundreds of years old that it looked.
‘What do you think? Go on. Look around.’
He got up and, followed by Ruth, he wandered around the village. The buildings were just a little smaller than he was: he could not stand up inside those low iron domes. The doors were all low, no more than two feet high, and he ducked to enter one or two, to look around the empty interiors with glowing eyes. In one he found a shallow depression in the centre of the room that might once have held a fire. Looking up, he saw a hole in the roof, flames of rust licking through the iron towards him.
He ducked back outside and turned his attention to the collar of stone on which the iron dome sat.
It was green with organic life, he noted with some disgust. Green fur, yellow splats of lichen, even frills of some pale substance he had never seen before.
He reached out and dragged his finger across it. It felt so insubstantial, almost like it wasn’t there. It was ironic. Up here, in this forgotten space at the top of the world, strong metal rusted, but weak organic life waxed wildly. Only in Turing City had the natural order reigned. Only in that state had the stones been scrubbed clean, the creeping tendrils of green life uprooted and burned, only there had metal walked pure and free. No more.
And then, as he stared at the obscene mush on his fingers, the world seemed to flip. For a moment, that mush was the true, vital life, and his metal body was cold and clean and sterile. Nothing but metal animated by thoughts.
Then the world flipped back again and he laughed. What did it mean to say ‘nothing but metal animated by thoughts’? He was exactly metal animated by thoughts.
The world flipped again, and he looked at those low, wide doorways, and something else became clear.
Ruth was there, standing by him.
‘What is it, Karel?’
‘I think I see. The robots that lived here weren’t shaped like me.’
He found the proof in the next building he looked inside.
Two bodies lay in there. Robot bodies of a sort. They were long, of many segments, two limbs, not quite arms, not quite legs, coming from each section. At one end there was an interface where Karel guessed another segment could be plugged. At the other there was a flat head containing two eyes of a similar design to his own.
The skull of one robot was broken open, and he peered inside at the blue wire in there, maybe not so much like in Karel’s own head, but it was twisted enough to suggest intelligence.
Karel ran his hands over one of the bodies. He moved it, felt the articulation in the joints, saw the way the blue wire of the mind ran to the very tip of each limb. Then he noticed what was missing. No electromuscle. These robots controlled their bodies by lifeforce alone. They would be weaker than he was, a lot weaker.
It was good metal though. Steel with enough chromium to encourage passivation: these bodies would take a long time to rust. He noticed the traces of chromium in the dome structure too.
He took hold of one of the bodies, and crawled backwards out of the building, dragging it along behind himself.
‘Have you seen robots like these before, Karel?’
‘No. What are they, Ruth?’
‘We were hoping you would tell us.’
He began to disassemble the body for parts, pausing for a moment.
‘What’s wrong?’ he asked Ruth, hearing the odd noise that she made. ‘It’s only metal.’
He turned his attention back to the creature. Some of the chromium steel had welded together, and he had to tear the gelled parts from each other. Even so, it was a nicely constructed machine, and Karel was impressed by the craftsrobotship of the makers.
And a thought suddenly occurred to him.
Why was he shaped like he was? Why did robots have two arms and two legs? Why did they walk upright?
The answer was obvious, of course. That was a sensible shape for a robot. It was a sensible shape for a human. But was the obvious answer the right one?
Night was falling.
‘We must take them down tonight,’ Karel overheard Brian saying. ‘They don’t sleep, remember? Who is going to stay awake amongst us?’
‘I’d do it. I want to know more about the stories! Melt knows more. You saw how he answered that question!’
‘I don’t care. I’ve summoned the craft already. There’ll be other robots, Ruth.’
They were looking at him, Karel knew. He pretended not to notice. He was sat on the floor before Jasprit, looking at the patterns she drew on a piece of plastic.
‘That looks like a child to me,’ he said.
‘But why?’ asked Jasprit. ‘What makes it look like a child?’
Ruth came up. She looked down at the pattern. ‘I thought that was a man.’
‘Apparently not,’ said Jasprit. ‘Not to a robot, anyway.’