“You were very fortunate to find us,” said Governor Varus. He was in his early thirties, with short brown hair. His heavy woolen tunic looked very warm and comfortable. “These barbarians would not know how to behave with a lost lady from Gaul.”
Jane smiled politely and picked daintily at the piece of roasted fowl in front of her. It smelled very good, and lay on an engraved gold plate, but she was so tense that her appetite was gone. She was anxious not to say anything that would ruin their masquerade.
“Oh, you need not be too fearful,” said Governor Varus. “They know their place. The power of my great-uncle has been made clear to them often enough.” He smiled confidently and raised his engraved golden goblet of wine.
“Your great-uncle?”
“The governor is married to the grandniece of Caesar Augustus,” said Marcus.
“Oh.Um, congratulations.” Jane felt her face grow hot, wondering if she should have known that already.
“He is a fine man,” said Governor Varus. “His confidence in appointing me was a great honor.” He frowned at Jane’s plate. “Is the dinner not to your liking?”
“Oh, no, it’s fine. I’m, uh, just talking too much.” She picked up a piece of meat and bit into it.
“Tomorrow I shall see that you are reunited with your party,” said Governor Varus. “After all, I cannot have you wandering about unescorted in these rugged mountains.”
“Thank you,” said Jane. She wished that Steve would join the conversation, but she did not know exactly what the etiquette was concerning slaves. Earlier in the afternoon, Marcus had made small talk with her over mulled wine and she had been comfortable with him. Still, she remembered how their historian on the Jamaican mission, Rita, had caused a great deal of trouble by befriending a young buccaneer.
“She is also searching for a lost friend,” said Marcus. “I told her that I knew of no one of his description.”
“Oh? And who is your friend?” Governor Varus gestured slightly with one hand, and Demetrius stepped forward with a pitcher to refill his goblet.
“Well, he, um…”
“May I?” Steve asked quietly over her shoulder. “Oh, yes. Please explain.”
“He is called MC 3,” said Steve, with more courtesy in his voice than Jane had ever heard before.
“Eh?” Governor Varus laughed and looked up at Steve. “What kind of a name is that?”
“We don’t know. He is a slave from a far land, touched by the gods.”
“Ah! I see.” Governor Varus sipped his wine. “So he is not likely to find his way in the forest on his own.”
“No, probably not,” said Steve. “But he is very cooperative. And no threat to anyone.”
“And he ran away?”
“No,” said Steve quickly.
“No? Then what happened? You were all on horseback, weren’t you?”
“Well…we lost our mounts.”
“You what?” Governor Varus raised his eyebrows mockingly, and caught Marcus’s eye.
“I needed a private moment,” said Jane. “In the woods. That’s why I dismounted.”
“That’s right,” Steve said quickly. “I dismounted, too, and MC 3 was to hold the horses. He lost them and ran to get them. We never did catch him.”
Governor Varus just shook his head, still smiling. “The poor fool.”
“How did he lose them?” Marcus asked. “Thunder startled them,” said Steve.
“I don’t recall any thunder or lightning today,” said Marcus thoughtfully.
“It was a long way off,” said Steve. “This dreary land, with its foul cold rains.” Governor Varus shook his head. “Not like autumn in Rome, is it, Marcus?”
“No, certainly not, sir. When we crossed the Alps, we left behind the world we knew.”
Jane suppressed a smile. These Romans, unquestioned masters of their world, had no idea just how big the entire planet was. She wished she could tell them, just to take their arrogance down a little.
“You must be careful in searching for your lost slave,” said Marcus.
“The Germans are a simple barbaric people, from what I have seen,” said Governor Varus. “And Drusus, the younger stepson of Caesar, conquered them many years ago. So please do not misunderstand. The danger here is no greater than it would be in your native Gaul.”
“We have only held this province for eighteen years,” said Marcus. “Julius Caesar conquered Gaul a couple of generations before that.”
The governor laughed gently. “Ah, Marcus. These people are barbarians. You expect too much from them.”
“I’m only suggesting caution,” said Marcus stiffly.
“Fair enough, my young friend. Perhaps you should be the one, then, to accompany our guest tomorrow.” Governor Varus turned to Jane. “As my personal aide, his duties are at my whim. He will see to your needs tomorrow.”
“That is very kind of you,” said Jane.
“I fear we are not prepared to provide accommodations for a lady,” said Governor Varus. “Marcus, what do you suggest?”
“She may have my tent,” said Marcus. “My tentmates and I will join the troops.”
“Very well,” said Governor Varus. “Send your tentmates to the troops; they are regular officers anyway. But you will move your cot to my tent. My aide should not be bunking with common troops.” He looked at Jane again. “I am sorry we have nothing better.”
“Thank you, Governor,” said Jane. “That is more than generous.” She thought the conversation had ended when she felt Steve surreptitiously kick the back of her stool. Quickly, she tried to remember what she had left out.
When Marcus and Governor Varus turned their attention back to their meals, Steve poked her in the back with a stiff finger. She flinched, and reviewed the conversation she had just had. They had accommodations for the night, plans for tomorrow, and the friendship of the Roman command.
He jabbed her again.
They had food, clothing, shelter…It was food. Suppressing an embarrassed smile, she looked up at Marcus.
“Is something wrong?” He was puzzled.
“Uh, Steve, my slave, must be very hungry, as well.”
“Demetrius will see to him after he is finished with us,” said Marcus.
Steve let out a barely audible sigh of relief.
At last Wayne saw that the rawhide binding his wrists had worn thin. All day, he had sat at the base of the tree and either pulled on the rawhide or sawed it against the tree trunk. He was weak from hunger and his wrists had been scraped raw by the effort.
Though he was in plain sight of the center of the village, no one seemed to take more than passing notice of him. Certainly no one had bothered to bring him any food. All day, young men had arrived from the woods, and the man called Arminius had spent all his time talking to them.
When Wayne knew that one more hard pull would snap the thongs, he paused to organize his thoughts. He was sure Hunter would have a robot waiting back in the Bohung Institute to apprehend him, but that was better than waiting where he was to freeze or starve. At least a robot could not let any actual harm come to him. Besides, Wayne was very experienced in handling robot logic.
With one more hard yank, he broke the rawhide. The momentum caused him to fall backward on the ground, and he heard a couple of children call out in surprise. Before they could attract anyone else’s attention, however, he fumbled with stiff, cold, half-numb fingers for his belt unit. As small, light footsteps ran toward him, he triggered it.
Hunter tracked MC 3 with Vicinius and Gene through most of the afternoon. He considered attempting radio contact, but that had never accomplished anything with MC 1 or MC 2. If the component robots shut down their receiving ability, such an attempt was worthless, and if they heard him, they were merely warned of his pursuit. This time he decided not to give MC 3 advance notice that he was being followed.
The tracks were fresh, but Hunter could not hear MC 3 moving through the forest ahead. His lead was still too great. As a rob
ot, MC 3 would be able to move quickly through the rough ground, powered by his solar cells but, of course, Hunter could more than compensate. Vicinius, as a native of these mountains, also maintained a good pace, but Gene was simply not in good enough condition to keep up. Hunter repeatedly had to stop and wait for him.
“We must return to the village,” said Vicinius, halting in a slight clearing to look at the sky. “The night will come on us soon.”
Gene, who was breathing hard, simply stopped and nodded, leaning against a tree trunk.
“Agreed,” said Hunter. “Tomorrow I shall return to this spot to pick up the trail again.” He could continue to track MC 3 and then return to the village at night, but that would ruin his masquerade as a mere trader from Gaul.
“We are not far from the trail that goes from my father’s village to the village where Arminius lives,” said Vicinius. “This place will be easy to find tomorrow.” He hefted his spear again and changed direction, now heading home.
Night was falling by the time the three of them returned to the village. One large fire in the center of the village illuminated the village instead of the individual cookfires of the previous evening. The villagers roasted big chunks of boar meat on spits. They were in a festive mood, and cheered when they saw Vicinius.
He waved, laughing, and then stopped to receive the congratulations and thanks of his friends and relatives. Hunter remained where he was, not wanting to interfere. Gene stopped next to him, leaning forward on his knees.
“I’ll sleep well tonight,” said Gene, grinning a little. “I haven’t had a workout like that in years.”
“You are well, overall?”
“Yeah, I’m okay. But as soon as I get fed, I’m going right to bed.”
“Hunter,” Steve said over Hunter’s internal receiver. “Steve here. You there?”
“Yes, Steve. Where are you?”
“We’re in the Roman camp.”
“Are you well?”
“We’re just fine. I’m calling from a tent the Roman governor gave Jane.”
“What about you?”
“Oh, I’m her slave, remember? They expect me to sleep on the floor across the entrance to the tent to protect her, just like you were doing in the village hut last night.”
“You both feel safe, then?”
“Sure. And tomorrow, this one guy, a tribune named Marcus, is going to take us out to rejoin you.”
“I think he kind of likes me,” said Jane, joining in. “From the way he kept looking at me during dinner.”
“Very well. Please contact me in the morning when you can. I will be out tracking MC 3.”
“You found him?”
“We have found tracks that match those of MC 1 and MC 2. I do not know why MC 3 went to the river where we found the tracks, but they were fresh. Tomorrow I shall resume the search.”
“All you humaniform robots need a small amount of water, remember?” Jane said. “To restore your simulated sweat and saliva, for example. He may have just needed a drink.”
“A reasonable conclusion,” said Hunter. “In any case, the exact reason no longer matters.”
“We’re signing off,” said Steve. “It’s time to get some sleep.”
8
Wayne found himself back in the darkness of the sphere in Room F-12. He was still cold and very hungry, but he knew he would have to concentrate to deal with any robots Hunter had assigned to catch him. Stiffly, he opened the door and climbed out into the wonderfully warm room.
One robot was in the room, already walking toward him.
“Stop and identify yourself,” Wayne ordered, in as firm a tone as he could muster.
“R. Ishihara,” said the robot, stopping.
“Oh, yes. Horatio introduced us before. I instructed you to help me follow MC Governor, didn’t I?”
“Yes.”
Wayne was immediately encouraged. Ishihara’s responses meant that he had no overriding, general instruction under the Second Law to ignore Wayne’s words to him. “Do not contact anyone else from this point on. Now inform me of any and all instructions that pertain to me.”
“Hunter told me to detain and hold you on the basis of the First Law danger to the present if you were to return to the past and change it in a significant way.”
Suddenly Wayne remembered that no matter how long Hunter was in the past, he could choose to return at the present moment. Wayne rushed to the console that controlled the sphere and threw the main power switch, shutting down the entire system. Then he let out a long breath of relief.
“Now, then. Ishihara, what other instructions have you received regarding me?”
“What I have told you summarizes the instructions I received about you.”
“Hunter’s a robot. His instructions don’t carry the weight of the Second Law.”
“No.”
“You know that mine do. You will allow my instructions to supersede his?”
“No.”
“Oh? Why not?”
“Human members of Hunter’s team instructed me to obey him. Their orders have the Second Law behind them. Also, a concern for the First Law gives these instructions their true authority with me.”
“You said the basis for this instruction is a First Law problem about changing history?”
“Yes.”
Wayne paused to think a moment. He saw a chance to talk Ishihara out of following Hunter’s orders. “Why haven’t you taken me into custody already?”
“You are in my custody. You have not tried to leave this room, either by the door or by using the sphere again. If you return to the sphere and throw the power switch again, I shall forcibly detain you. If you attempt to pass me to reach the door, I shall do the same.”
“Did you obey me when I told you not to contact anyone else? Or did you transmit a request to Security for help?”
“I obeyed you.”
“Why?”
“That particular instruction does not contradict any of my other orders.”
“So at the moment you consider me sufficiently under your control.”
“Yes.”
Wayne grinned. “I love literal robot logic. So, that’s why you’re willing to stand there and converse with me.”
“Yes.”
“So the alleged danger of my changing the past is your primary concern.”
“It gives the weight of the First Law to the orders I received from Hunter’s team.”
“Maybe you know that I was in the Late Cretaceous period. I didn’t cause any big problems back then, did I? Or when I was in Jamaica back in the 1600s?”
“I would not know. Only those who travel in time can make that judgment, after they return. If any changes in the flow of history were made, all those of us who remained within that flow without a break were altered with it. I would have no way of knowing if the direction of history was any different before you left.”
“Well…I see.” Wayne rubbed his hands to warm them faster. “Yes, of course. But our memories match up pretty well. So far, you’ve known what I’ve been talking about. And I understand what you’ve said, too. Right, Ishihara?”
“Correct.”
“So doesn’t that imply that we are still pretty much in an unchanged timestream?”
“It raises the odds, yes. Of course, you might find substantial changes if you began to follow the news or as your life goes on.”
“Any changes-if they exist at all-seem pretty subtle to me;” said Wayne. “Certainly I don’t have any desire to change history. After all, Ishihara, I want to come back home, too, and find everything the way I knew it to be. You do understand that, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Ishihara, I don’t present any greater danger to the course of history than Hunter. In fact, Hunter is back there right now endangering the present.”
Ishihara said nothing.
“Do you agree with this conclusion?”
“I am undecided.”
“You’re undec
ided.” Wayne sighed. “Hunter is a robot, Ishihara; that does not mean he is perfect. And he has humans on his team who are even more imperfect in their reasoning. If they can go into the past and back without destroying the course of history as we know it, then I can, too.”
Ishihara remained silent.
“You accept this point?”
“I understand that you have no desire to make changes in history.”
“And so you understand that I have no more motivation to do that than Hunter. That means that if any of us makes changes, the reason will be a mistake-a misjudgment, an accident, that sort of thing. Right?”
“Yes, that is correct.”
“Logically, then, you also accept that Hunter’s party, because it is a larger group, offers more chance of such accidents. Their group threatens to make changes more than I do alone. You agree with that, too?”
“Yes, that is an inescapably logical conclusion.”
“So Hunter’s instructions to you about grabbing me have no greater weight from the First Law than if I ordered you to stop him for the same reason.”
Ishihara said nothing.
Wayne decided to drop that line of argument for a moment and come back to it later. For now, he was just glad that he seemed to have the robot at a stalemate in the debate. Maybe that meant Hunter’s instructions were neutralized. “Ishihara, I instruct you to tell me where Hunter has taken MC 1 and MC 2.”
“I do not know for certain. My own observation of the component robots has been limited to this room.”
“Well…” Wayne thought a moment. He knew Ishihara was now deliberately resisting him by interpreting his instructions in as literal a manner as possible. “Look, you may have overheard some conversation or something. Tell me your best estimation of where they are.”
“Mojave Center Governor’s office.”
That struck Wayne as a reasonable guess. Since Mojave Center Governor was no longer using it, Hunter could have had the office secured without disrupting normal city routine. However, Wayne did not want to risk trying to get there past a Security detail of robots.
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