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infantryrobots exchanged looks. Eventually one of them stepped forward.
    ‘What does Kavan say?’
    Kavan pointedly looked from the heavily armed and armoured Storm Troopers, to the thin shells of the infantry. When he was sure that everyone there had got the point, he gave his answer.
    ‘For the moment, Forban and I are in agreement. We march south.’
    Kavan and Calor, Forban and his troops marched south.
    The signs of long-abandoned robot inhabitation seemed to rise and fall across the landscape like tides on a beach. Long ago, robots had followed the Northern Road through this land, bringing news and devices from the Top of the World, carrying the metal they quarried from these hills back up there by way of trade. Kavan had heard something about the history of this land as he had fought his way north, but he had seen little, if anything, of its former glory. The robots who had built these roads and the half-collapsed buildings that stood by them were long gone.
    The hills rose and fell as they marched, the Storm Troopers beat a path through the wet turf, shouldering aside boulders, slashing at the twisted and weatherblown plants that clung to life in the thin soil. The infantryrobots marched on, eyes fixed upon Kavan, who walked silently in the centre of the group, his thoughts elsewhere.
    Calor’s gaze constantly searched along the top of the surrounding hills when they walked through valleys, it flicked from boulder to tree when they walked the high moors, watching the movement all around them.
    Because word of Kavan’s reappearance was spreading. Calor saw the flickers of sunlight at the top of the hills. Scouts, looking down at the grey and black bodies that marched south, relaying messages back and forth to others who marched nearby.
    Forban noticed them, and he spoke into a radio just out of Kavan’s earshot. Half an hour later, a squad of twenty Storm Troopers marched in from a side path and joined them.
    Kavan and the infantryrobots now found themselves surrounded by the black marching bodies. The air was filled with the percussion of metal on rock, the hum of electromuscle working and the prickling of electricity. Feet were covered in grey dust, mud and moisture.
    And then Calor raised herself up on tiptoes in a dancing, skipping movement, looking over the tall heads that surrounded them. She jumped and spun, dodging through the dark press of bodies, her hand blades slightly extended as she did so.
    Four Scouts were running up to join them. Calor dropped back to speak to them, and now Kavan found himself walking alongside an infantryrobot. Coal, his name was.
    ‘You’re outnumbered, Kavan,’ said Coal. ‘Forban has been on the radio, calling up yet more Storm Troopers to join in the escort duty. They have always been more loyal to Spoole. You need to find more infantry! They will support you!’
    ‘Move away there! Get back to your place!
    Forban appeared at Kavan’s side. The infantryrobot stared at Kavan significantly and then fell back to his place in line.
    ‘We are bearing a little too far to the west,’ said Kavan.
    ‘There is an old road over this way,’ answered Forban. ‘It runs south across the whole of Northern Shull. Didn’t you notice when you marched these lands?’
    ‘It runs north, not south,’ said Kavan. ‘All the way north to the Top of the World. The robots of these lands believed that Alpha and Gamma, the first two robots, were made up there. Their descendants travelled down the Northern Road to populate Shull.’
    ‘Do you believe that, Kavan?’
    ‘I know it’s not true. I have seen the proof, up on the northern coast. There is a building there, I have been inside. I know that robots evolved here on Penrose.’
    ‘I think . . . hey, who are you?’
    Calor had rejoined the middle of the party, but there was another Scout with her now. They were both speaking to one of the infantryrobots that trudged along. The new Scout looked at Forban for a moment and then turned and