Perihelion iarc-6

by William F. Wu

  It was empty.

  Time was growing short. She would either have to find a way to break her trail, or else leave a track into the mountains that any Hunter could follow.

  She started down the street, peering inside any windows she could reach.

  “ORBIT ATTAINED,” said the ship computer. “PLEASE INSTRUCT.”

  “Maintain altitude,” said Jeff. “Vary the route at random.”

  “ACKNOWLEDGED.”

  Jeff turned to look at Derec. He was reclining in his seat, eyes closed, jaw clenched. Jeff unstrapped and moved over to him.

  “What is it?” Ariel asked.

  “These seats convert into berths. If you’ll unstrap him, I’ll get the seat all the way down flat. Then flexible privacy walls pull down from the ceiling. “

  “I see.”

  They worked in silence, watching Derec. He was clearly awake, but in no mood to converse. When he was lying down comfortably, Jeff pulled down the walls, leaving one open just enough for him to see out if he wished.

  Jeff and Ariel sat down in the two control seats in the front.

  “Can we do anything for him?” Jeff asked.

  “No,” Ariel whispered.

  He looked at her in surprise.

  Her eyes were wide and staring at the blank viewscreen on the console.

  “Ariel? What’s wrong?”

  She didn’t respond.

  He took hold of her arm, gently, and moved his face in front of her unwavering gaze. “Ariel. Can you see me?”

  Her eyes were steady, open, and beginning to water.

  Jeff felt a tickle of fear along the back of his neck. Ariel had told him something of the chemfets in Derec and her memory loss and regrowth. However, he had had the impression that she was getting much better. Now he was alone in orbit with both of them and didn’t know if he should try to help or what he could do.

  “Computer,” he said. “Review landing sites. Skip the ones on the beach. They’ll be guarded.”

  “LANDING SITES COMING ON SCREEN.”

  “Which one is the closest to the crops now?”

  “IT IS MARKED IN BLUE.”

  “Can you describe it?”

  “IT IS A MAIN THOROUGHFARE IN THIS PART OF THE CITY, STRAIGHT AND OF SUFFICIENT SIZE FOR A SAFE LANDING. THE SHIP WILL HALT APPROXIMATELY 6.4 KILOMETERS FROM THE AGRICULTURAL FIELD.”

  “What are the chances that Hunters will be waiting for us when we get there?”

  “UNKNOWN, BUT VERY HIGH. THEY ARE CERTAINLY IN THE AREA AND WILL SEE AND HEAR THE SHIP ON ITS FINAL APPROACH. IF THEY ARE NOT WAITING, THEY WILL CONVERGE QUICKLY.”

  “Faster than last time?”

  “DEFINITELY.”

  Jeff looked at Ariel again. She hadn’t moved. Behind them, Derec seemed to be asleep. Neither of them would run very far.

  Chapter 13. Into The Mountains

  Wolruf had been trotting up and down the blocks, growing more frantic in her search for a moving vehicle of some kind. Inside the buildings, most machinery ran smoothly without even the presence of function robots. Finally she spotted a small wheeled function robot rolling at a good clip along a side street.

  She took off at a dead run for it. Oblivious to her, it turned a corner and disappeared from sight. By the time she got there, it had gained more distance on her and was angling across a wide street. None of the slidewalks would take her that way.

  She was slowing down, about to give up, when it abruptly changed direction toward a doorway. The door opened automatically, timed so that the function robot did not have to slow down at all. She forced herself to hurry on.

  Wolruf was not in particularly good condition. Since joining Derec, she had been starved on several occasions, overfed on others, injured, and-like all of them except Mandelbrot-sometimes overworked and stressed to her limit. She was now basically healthy, but she had not had exercise like this for a long time.

  Then she saw the function robot emerge from the doorway and zip across the boulevard again. It mounted a slidewalk this time and actually came back toward her. Panting heavily, she turned and ran for the slidewalk, angling toward a likely intersection point with it as it rolled along the moving slidewalk.

  She got a better look at it as she converged on it. It was only about a meter square and two meters high. The wheels, as she had first identified them, proved to be a bed of spheres that gave it the capacity to alter direction without turning its body.

  The body of the little robot was smooth and featureless. Wolruf had no chance of catching it if it passed her again, considering how exhausted she was. As she closed with it, she leaped, scrabbled for a hold, and managed to hang on.

  The robot immediately slowed down. It did not stop, however, so she clung to its body and rode. At least her body heat had left the stationary surfaces on the ground. Now she had to catch her breath and hope this thing didn’t carry her right into the view of a Hunter.

  She realized that she had no idea what this was programmed to do. From its size and what she had seen, she guessed it was a courier of some sort, perhaps for small parts and tools. That might account for its slowing down in response to her weight, but not otherwise reacting. Right now, though, it was taking her away from the mountains that she desperately wanted to enter.

  Suddenly it moved onto the stationary shoulder, slowed down, and came to a halt. She looked around, puzzled, and saw nothing. Then it started across the street.

  She raised up and looked off to her side, which was now the way they were going. A large Hunter robot was striding down another slidewalk toward them. When it had seen her, it had obviously instructed the function robot to move toward it.

  Wolruf jumped off the function robot and ran the other way, turning the first corner she reached. A slidewalk here would carry her in the direction she wanted, so she mounted it and went into a trot. At the next corner, she jumped off and turned another corner. The Hunter could move faster than she could, and she was tiring rapidly even after her brief rest riding the courier, or whatever that thing had been.

  She had only moments left to think of something.

  With no other recourse, she headed straight for the mountains, only a few blocks away. Another slidewalk would help, though of course the Hunter could ride it, too. As the boulevard bordering the foothills came into view, she looked behind her.

  The Hunter was in full view and running down the moving slidewalk toward her.

  She glanced quickly in both directions as she crossed the boulevard. The street was empty as far as she could see on both sides. Then she was across it, darting among the trunks of tall trees.

  She climbed the slope as fast as she could, ducking under branches and dodging bushes. The forest showed signs of the careful Robot City planning: The types of trees and bushes varied with a certain regularity, as did their sizes. Planting had been done with the long view in mind, both of harvesting and of soil usage.

  As she bent low to pass under the arching branches of a large bush shaped something like a simple water fountain, she realized that she just might gain some ground here. Her size was a considerable advantage in the close maze of growth. As far as she had seen, the Hunters were uniformly among the tallest and bulkiest of the humanoid robots.

  If only she could gain enough time to rest.

  Derec awakened in the berth, at first puzzled by his surroundings. Then he remembered, vaguely, that Jeff and Ariel had somehow reclined his seat into an entirely flat position so that he could rest more comfortably. He lay quietly for a while, staring at the ceiling.

  Thankfully, he had not experienced any of those wild dreams in some time. Their weirdness was frightening. Yet he felt worn out, even after sleeping.

  Maybe he had been having those nightmares and not remembering them. The chemfets were growing inside him like an organic parasite. Their symptoms also evolved, like those of a disease. Not having those dreams, or at least not remembering them, was yet another sign of how far beyond the early stages his condition
had advanced.

  He reached over to one of the screens and sent it back up into the ceiling. When he rose up on one shoulder to look around, he saw the silhouettes of Jeff and Ariel in the front of the ship. They were turning around at the sound of the wall screens moving.

  “Derec?” Ariel said softly. “How are you feeling?”

  He cleared his throat and swung his legs over the side of the bed, hiding the pains in all his muscles.

  “Derec?” She repeated, moving to him.

  “A little better,” said Derec. He started to stand, then decided not to take the risk of falling.

  “I had one of my…memory fugues again.”

  “Really? How bad was it?” He looked up at her in surprise. “You haven’t had one for some time.”

  “I don’t know how bad it was.”

  “What?”

  “Jeff told me I was just staring at nothing. And I don’t remember it at all.”

  “Maybe you phased back to the time before I had your new memory developing again. Right into that empty period. Anyhow, it’s over.” He sighed. “As for me, my symptoms have been…changing.”

  She looked at him without speaking.

  Derec knew she understood that meant he was getting worse.

  “We have to land,” said Jeff, joining them. “I can’t do anything for either one of you if…if something happens again.”

  “Then you’ve heard from Mandelbrot?” Derec asked.

  “No. We haven’t. But our fuel is running low.”

  “All we’re using here is enough for life support,” said Ariel.

  “And for evasive changes in direction. Landing and takeoff will also use a lot.” Derec nodded. “All right. Do you have any plan of action?”

  “Yeah, but it’s not very good. Basically, we land on one of the big boulevards the ship computer has identified as a site and drive this thing to the edge of the mountains. Then we run for it.”

  “I’m…not going to be running very fast.”

  Jeff nodded.

  “And the central computer can study our final approach and tell the Hunters where we’re likely to land.”

  “The Hunters will be waiting at the landing site,” Ariel agreed. “But we can gain some ground on them by taxiing in the ship right to the foothills.”

  “And then?” Derec said pointedly.

  Jeff and Ariel just looked at each other.

  “All right,” said Derec. “We can’t stay up here. We’ll have to take our chances. “

  Wolruf darted under another of those thick, fountain-shaped bushes and paused to rest. She had had two glimpses of her pursuit down the slope; at least two Hunters were now behind her. Though her crooked path had made calculating distance difficult, she did not think they had gained ground on her.

  She continued to study the ground around her, as she did when fleeing. Finally, here, she located what she had expected to find all along. The robots were too efficient and well-organized to cultivate a forest without them.

  A small metal stud protruded from the ground in front of her. She studied it carefully, poking at it with her stubby, sausagelike fingers. Then she began to look around in the dirt again.

  A high-pitched whine caught her attention. It was faint at first, but growing louder quickly, turning into a wail from the sky. Human ears could not have heard it at this distance, but she could, and that meant the robots easily could. She could not see upward clearly from the forest floor, but the sound of the Minneapolis in shuttle mode was unmistakable to her sensitive ears.

  She waited, quivering with tension. As she listened, the ship obviously came to land safely somewhere in the urban area. Then it grew so faint that she wasn’t sure if it had stopped or not. After a moment, it began to grow louder again.

  She understood that the humans had decided to risk getting to the crop field however they could. That meant she could help them, if the Hunters did not come upon her too soon. She finally located a small rock in the dirt around her and began striking it against the little metal post with glancing blows.

  At first she couldn’t hit it at the right angle. Then, even after she had produced a few sparks, she found all of them flying away from the metal. Eventually, however, one of the sparks fell back onto the small metal post itself.

  Instantly, one of the highly sensitive Robot City sensors responded to the heat by producing a fine spray of water, no more than a meter high. Greater heat would undoubtedly have triggered a stronger spray; however, this would be good enough for her purposes. The sprinklers would dampen the ground behind her, eliminating the body heat that the Hunters had been tracking.

  She looked around, blinking against the spray. Other sprinklers near her had also been triggered, as far as she could see. As always, these robots had designed their system efficiently.

  The Minneapolis had come to a halt some distance to her left, according to the sound, at the bottom of the foothills. She wanted to join the humans again, but did not dare. They could lose their pursuit now in the sprinkled area, but the Hunters behind her were too close. She might just lead them right to the others.

  She took a deep breath and darted away from the bush, looking for rocks, roots, and other hard surfaces to step on. The Hunters could no longer follow her heat, but they could see footprints. She ran on up the slope, away from the crop field.

  As Wolruf had surmised, the Minneapolis had landed safely at a site surrounded by Hunter robots and had successfully driven through the crowd down the boulevard straight to the base of the mountains. As soon as it had stopped, the door had opened and the ladder had extended. Jeff and Ariel were helping Derec out the door when he stopped on the top rung of the ladder.

  “Hold it,” said Derec. “Ship computer!”

  “STANDING BY.”

  “You have a record of all the Hunters who were waiting for us at the landing site just a minute ago?”

  “AFFIRMATIVE. ALL ROBOTS PRESENT AT THE SITE WERE RECORDED ON THE VIEWSCREEN TAPES.”

  “Chase them,” said Derec. “As long as you can do so without endangering the ship. Pursue them up and down any boulevards big enough for you.”

  “CLARIFY. “

  “Make them think you’re going to run them down-in fact, do so if you can. The Third Law requires them to take care of themselves, so keep as many of them distracted and out of the mountains as you can. Got it?” Derec indulged in a grin

  “ACKNOWLEDGED. “

  “Let’s go.”

  Jeff and Ariel walked on each side of him, holding his arms draped over their shoulders as they hurried awkwardly to the edge of the forested hills. All three of them had to watch the ground right in front of them and each other’s feet just to keep from stumbling.

  “This is insane,” Derec said through his teeth. “We can’t even outrun an Auroran striped hastifer. How are we going to get away from the Hunters this way?”

  “Better than a crash landing with no fuel for shuttle mode,” panted Jeff.

  “It’s getting worse,” said Ariel. “Yuck. I’m getting wet. It must be raining.”

  Derec jerked his head up and looked at the brush and trees around them. “Really? No, it’s not raining…Look-sprinklers!” He grinned. “Sprinklers!”

  “What-” Ariel paused to edge around the trunk of a tree, as she was still tangled in Derec’s arm. “What are you so happy about?”

  “The Hunters have been using heat sensors to track us. We have a chance now.”

  “Mud,” said Jeff. He turned his head to one side and ducked under a branch. “That’s our next problem. We have to watch our footsteps or they’ll just follow those.”

  Derec pulled his arm free from Ariel. “And I’ve got some adrenaline flowing again. I’m loosening up. Come on-as long as I’m really worked up, I can move.” He pulled away from Jeff, too, trying to hide the extreme pains he still felt.

  Jeff studied his face. “Whatever you say. But if you really need help, say so, all right?”

  “Yeah, yeah.
Come on.”

  Jeff led the way up the slope. The forest grew thicker very quickly and then remained almost uniformly the same, probably the result of precise robot planting. Derec followed him, straining not to show how much difficulty he was having. Still, Jeff tended to gain on him, while Ariel was always moving up right behind him.

  As Derec struggled on, one fact kept returning to his thoughts. Dr. Avery had done this to him-and Derec had never done anything to him. His anger served to fire him, to keep him moving, to force him onward. Dr. Avery would not escape.

  Jeff stepped onto a ridge of white rock and stopped, breathing hard. Derec came up and joined him, but collapsed into a sitting position. Ariel stood next to him.

  “That agricultural park, or whatever you want to call it, is that way,” said Jeff, nodding at an angle over the mountains. “According to the viewscreen, there are passes on each side of us.”

  Derec looked up at him, but was too out of breath to speak. He just nodded.

  “It looks like these rocks extend across this foothill for some distance,” Jeff went on. “They’ll take us toward either pass. I think we should stay on this ridge for as long as we can to avoid leaving footprints.“

  “Maybe the ship really slowed down a few Hunters,” Ariel said when she had the breath.

  “We can hope so,” said Jeff. “But we’d better get going.”

  Derec struggled to get up. “Okay,” he said huskily.

  They started again, more slowly this time.

  Chapter 14. The Agricultural Park

  Twilight had fallen on the mountain pass by the time Derec plodded after Jeff and Ariel to its far side. They waited for him to catch up and he leaned an arm across Ariel’s shoulders when he arrived. Together, the three of them looked out over the green valley below.

  The valley was divided into many different fields, all of them tended by function robots. The hoes were easily identified, even at this great distance. There were others moving about, some clipping and spraying. The lower slopes leading into the valley were terraced and cultivated, also.

  “This has to be the place,” said Derec. “Robots just don’t need this stuff.”