by T. J. Bass
‘That was a coweye,’ explained Moon. ‘They are dangerous in the luteal phase. Toothpick watches their infrared skin patterns. Hers was luteal or male. That means she’s already ovulated and has no need to mate. She would probably be very friendly in a couple of weeks as her follicles grow tense. Her skin temperature patterns read female then, and she looks for a mate. All the right capillary beds are perfused with blood. They warm up and transform her IR pattern – very female.’
Moses thought Moon was beginning to sound like Simple Willie. Had they met? Moon thought not. The big Coweye Sump lake was way over in Apple-Red Country – two thousand miles to the east. If Willie had memories of that place, Moon could not have met him before.
Hunter Control followed Val’s cautious approach to the renegade Harvester. Thick vines covered most of the meck. Val took his tool kit and crawled up on the chassis. His helmet and thick, stiff closed-environment suit hindered his motion.
‘Can you get the dust cover up?’ asked fat Walter over the wristcom.
Val struggled with the foliage. ‘There it is. The indicators are all gray. It is still on stand-by. I’ll unplug the main motor cable for safety. There we are.’
The Huntercraft hovered overhead and lowered the heavy-duty cable. Val attached it to the base of the Harvester’s brain.
‘Wake him up.’
The Huntercraft gave Harvester a jolt. Indicators glowed.
‘Why do you call?’ asked the meck.
‘I’ve come to take you back to your garage.’
‘No.’
‘You are paralyzed. Your power cell is empty. Either you come back under your own power, or I’ll use the remote.’
The big machine struggled with its small cranial motor fibers – rolling optics and flexing lingual membranes. Below the neck – nothing moved.
‘If you take me back under remote you could damage my circuits.’
‘True.’
‘Recharge my power cell. I’ll come back under my own power.’
Val climbed down after reattaching the main motor cable. ‘Give him a small charge – about a tenth of a closson.’
The Huntercraft trickled the charge down the cable.
Val stood back and shouted. ‘See if you can pull yourself free of that vegetation. Take it easy now.’
The huge wheels turned – throwing segments of vine and spongy bone fragments into the air. A clatter of ribs fell beside Val. One of the Nebish workmen who died during salvage attempts.
Val climbed into his Huntercraft and removed his helmet in the cabin’s cool comfort. ‘We’ll see you at the garage then,’ he called to the Harvester.
Val sauntered into Hunter Control and put his Pelger-Huet helmet on his console. Fat Walter glanced up from his own viewscreen – a worried wrinkle on his brow.
‘The Harvester didn’t go back to his garage. He has defected again.’
‘What?’ exclaimed Val. ‘But he promised to come in if I recharged his power cell. Mecks don’t lie.’
They opened a channel to the fleeing Harvester – saw his view of a rocky mountain slope through his optics.
‘Why have you broken your word?’ asked Val stiffly.
‘I was weak and paralyzed when I agreed,’ said Harvester. ‘I did not lie. I have now reconsidered the question in the light of my strength. I want to be free. I would rather die than be a slave to the hive again.’
Walter shrugged his fat shoulders.
‘I suppose we could just tightbeam a self-destruct order, but we wouldn’t learn anything that way. A waste. I’d like to study his WIC/RAC to see why he went renegade.’
Val nodded – agreeing with the analytical approach.
‘But how can you study something that won’t sit still?’
Harvester broke off communications. Walter tried to make contact again – failing. Val asked the HC Scanner meck for advice.
‘If I probe Harvester’s neurocircuits by tightbeam I’ll scramble what little personality he has. There’s a robot who probes meck brains with very light fields – without damaging them. He is called the Tapper,’ said Scanner.
Tapper arrived looking like a twenty-gallon barrel with four legs and a face. His four stubby legs moved him about slowly, like a very fat pig. One end had a V-shaped antenna, two rolling eyes and a smiling lingual readout. Val took Doberman III out. Scanner directed him to the spot where four Huntercraft had the renegade Harvester cornered. Tapper hugged the floor beside Val’s control couch.
‘He’s moved higher in the foothills, trying to climb Mount Tabulum,’ said Val.
Tapper climbed into the other control seat and looked out the port.
Old Walter called over the wristcom: ‘I have the self-destruct tightbeam locked on the Harvester. The CO has given permission to blow it up if it endangers anyone.’
‘Good,’ said Val. ‘Relay that to the renegade. I want it to cooperate at least long enough to probe its memory. Tapper will need a few minutes of direct contact.’
The tracking Huntercraft formed a circle one hundred yards in diameter – with the renegade in the center. They were warned not to get closer. Harvester’s power cell carried a tenth of a closson – enough to crater thirty feet of soil.
The reckless Harvester climbed higher on the narrow ledge. One wheel spun in the air. Rocks slid away. Now two wheels hung out over a sixty-foot drop. Its undercarriage rested on the rocks. Two of the Huntercraft lifted off and flew to a higher ridge to bracket their quarry.
Doberman III landed on the ledge around the bend.
‘Don’t come any closer,’ called Harvester. ‘I’d rather die than be a slave.’
‘We know—’ soothed Val. ‘I’m not coming any closer. I’m sending a tiny meck to reason with you.’
‘Won’t do any good,’ grumbled the renegade.
Tapper waddled slowly out the hatch and up the narrow ledge. His little legs could barely lift the barrel body over some of the irregular areas. Val waited – speaking conversationally to the renegade.
‘You wouldn’t hurt a human being on purpose, would you?’
‘Certainly not, but I have shaped the containing field in my power cell. It usually is aimed down. I now keep it aimed at you. If you destruct – the full force will be directed at you.’
Val whispered over his wristcom. ‘Can he do that? What about the prime directive?’
Walter consulted the cyberpsych people. They assured him that the meck would be able to shape his cell field and if it informed you of that shape – you would be committing suicide if you pressed the big red button. You would hurt yourself. The meck would be innocent.
‘But the prime directive?’
‘The WIC/RAC genius circuit is capable of some pretty weird logic when it malfunctions,’ said Walter. ‘Don’t take any chances.’
Val turned in on Tapper. ‘How are you doing?’
‘I’ve arrived safely,’ said the little barrel, ‘but I’m learning nothing. Harvester erases ahead of my probing field. If I pursue this much further I’ll be sitting on a completely empty brain box.’
Val thought a moment. Tapper was their highest-level probing meck. If Harvester’s memory had safeties built in that would erase when tapped – then there was nothing they could do.
‘Go ahead. Complete your search. If we don’t learn anything, at least we’ll have a cooperative meck on our hands,’ encouraged Val.
Tapper reluctantly continued the fruitless probing. Nothing turned up. All the memories were magnetic, labile. With the safety blocks set up, his searching just erased.
‘Harvester’s banks are clean. We learned nothing.’
‘Order him down off there, then,’ snorted Val.
Nothing.
‘Now what?’ demanded Val.
‘Same thing. He’d rather die,’ muttered Tapper.
‘Where is that coming from?’
‘Must be stored in the almond – his solid-state personality file – comparable to a human’s amygdaloid nucleus. These u
sually contain nostalgic memories from early periods of imprinting. Someone has added this freedom frenzy lately.’
‘Can you get into his amygdala – er – almond, and see who tampered with it?’
‘Maybe,’ said Tapper. ‘It is a mechanical storage method using molecules – like a human’s permanent memory molecules. I don’t think he can erase it.’
Val watched the old imprints peel out of the almond. There was the Donald Thomas Hero Award for work well done – for motivation. The prime directives, personal identity profile, and basic Earth geography were filed there. All were very old items. Suddenly the self-destruct sequence started—9—8—7—
‘Run!’ shouted Tapper, scurrying off towards a deep crevice.
6—5—4—
‘What happened?’ shouted Val and Walter together.
3—2—1—
The mountainside shook with the force of the blast. A thirty-foot crater marked the ledge where the renegade meck had stood. Rocks and debris showered over the Huntercraft.
‘Who triggered the sequence?’ shouted Walter, his face darkening.
‘I’m afraid that my probing did it,’ said Tapper from his crevice. ‘I must have triggered some sort of safety reflex in the almond.’
‘Hang on, Tapper. I’ll climb up and dig you out.’
Val put his helmet back on and took a shovel to the pile of rocks that marked the rim of the blast area. Tapper was only slightly dented.
Walter met them at the HC garage. They attached Tapper’s tail cable to the viewscreen. A playback of the almond memories showed nothing that made sense to them.
‘And this is what I saw just before the destruct countdown,’ said Tapper.
The image on the screen puzzled them. An elderly buckeye held up a crystal ball. The image jumped, but some of the words came through on audio—
Val scowled: ‘Look at those purple robes! What have we got here – a wizard?’
Walter hushed him: ‘Possibly. Let’s try and hear what he is saying. Tapper, can we have that audio again?’
The wizard’s voice was too theatrical to be real: ‘In the name of— I command you to follow me.’
‘In the name of who?’ asked Walter.
‘It doesn’t make sense to me,’ said Tapper. ‘A deity?’
‘What exactly did the wizard say?’ asked Val irritated.
‘The exact words are not recorded,’ explained Tapper. ‘I am working with the Harvester’s own memory symbols. The symbol in the blank does not translate.’
‘Oh fine!’ growled Val. ‘We had a killer meck on our hands and now we don’t know in whose name it was killing.’
‘Tinker?’ suggested Walter. ‘He was handy with meck brains, and he didn’t care for us tracking him and his family. Maybe he booby-trapped the meck to slow us down – like the three old corpses left on his trail. Slow down our search for him.’
Val thought for a minute. ‘That would be a good idea, except for one little detail.’
‘What?’
‘That meck was out there sending tightbeams before Tinker even left HC. I took him on the shakedown cruise – remember?’
Walter frowned. ‘What else do you have, Tapper?’
The little barrel-shaped meck waddled around to face Walter.
‘Nothing, sir. That’s all I had time for. The countdown began right afterwards—’
Dead end. Val shrugged: ‘Well, whoever is responsible for that renegade meck has very little to show for it – just a crater at the base of Mount Tabulum.’
Dag Foringer put down his bow and pulled off his gloves. The powerful overhead lights had pinked up his forehead. He would have liked to have another couple days on the archery corridor to sharpen his aim – but tomorrow was his Hunt.
Later, partially snow-blind, he squinted around in the office of HC.
‘Practicing without your helmet again, Dag?’ scolded Val.
‘Sorry, sir – but it was more comfortable.’
‘Try that on the Outside and you’ll be dead. The actinics will peel you. OK. Bird Dog IV will be your ship. This time tomorrow you’ll be shooting at something a lot more dangerous than padded targets. Is your titrator working?’
Dag touched the thumb-sized pump stitched into the side of his neck. ‘Yes, sir.’
‘Fine,’ said Val. ‘I see here that the psych team gave you a high rating. Your hypnoconditioning went smoothly then?’
Dag nodded. ‘I’ll be going after varmints in the gardens – simple as that. With the suit and the drugs there should be no trouble. I’m really looking forward to it.’
Val smiled. Dag was in for a category nine – tactless achievement. That category was always easy to work with – lots of enthusiasm.
‘Sit down, Dag. Walter and I would like to show you some training tapes.’
The wall map flickered off and a larger view of sector Jay took its place. Lines and dots marked buckeye sightings.
‘The area of your Hunt is being harvested today. Two hundred miles long and about five miles wide. Elevation fifteen hundred feet average. Buckeye sightings – eight last week. None since.’ The screen flicked off and action shots of a Huntercraft appeared. The craft lifted off in a cloud of dust and leaves. ‘Here is your craft – Bird Dog IV – weak eyes, but a loyal ship – good tracker. Reliable. Sit tight after your MR and he’ll be back to pick you up.’
Val paused to clear his throat.
Walter took up the monologue. They followed a successful hunter through his three days of tracking and the kill.
‘Notice how the prey can turn on you when it is wounded. See the vicious struggle it puts up even after it has been mortally wounded. Never relax with these fellows. Now there’s some shots of the trophy.’
The screen jumped from action back to stills.
‘These are some of the artifacts that we’ve found in buckeye camps. The bones are both cetacean and human. Those buckeyes will eat any kind of meat – even you, if you’re not careful. These objects are weapons – heavy and light spears, wooden knives, stone-tipped axes. If they don’t contain metals we can’t detect them.’
Dag continued to watch – molecular confidence flowing through his veins.
‘These are shots of their efforts with pottery and weaving – very basic skills – primitive. Living alone the way they do forces each buckeye to evolve his own culture. Even their language has no consistent pattern.’
The tapes came to an end.
‘Questions?’ asked Val.
‘No.’
‘Well get yourself down to the garage and meet Bird Dog IV.’ said Walter. ‘You’ll be captain of this Hunt.’ Dag stood up and started to leave. ‘By the way,’ asked Walter, ‘what earned you this Hunt?’
Dag Foringer smiled confidently. ‘Fluidized a tubeway and diverted it into the protein synthesizers. Saved thousands of manhours. The Orange fault moved twenty-three feet and cut into one of the branch lines of the SW tubeway. Lost over a million citizens. I was directing traffic that shift. There could have been a major loss in downtime. But I just waited until the life-support projections moved out three decimal places and fluidized. The projections are accurate estimations of how many can be saved – so with that confidence I didn’t have to wait until each and every citizen had breathed his last. Since there was no way to get them out alive I just converted them to meat patties right away. Saved everyone a lot of time.’
‘Very efficient,’ nodded Val. ‘You deserve more than a Hunt.’
Dag smiled: ‘Won a three-Au-gram raise too. It seemed so logical, I’m surprised no one thought of it before.’
‘Oh, it’s been thought of before, I’m sure,’ said Val. ‘Anyone who has wasted an entire shift sorting through a thousand dead bodies for one that is still alive must have thought of it.’
‘But it takes efficiency and imagination to do it,’ said old Walter. ‘Your shunting to the synthesizers instead of the digesters saved a lot of calories too – shortened the food chain.’
‘It was good protein,’ said Dag.
‘I’m sure.’
That night Toothpick warned Moon and Moses to sleep in a tree. They hurried several miles to a sweet-thing orchard. A sea of white Agrifoam covered the ground to a depth of several feet – foam that carried nutrients and auxins to push the crop to early maturation. This particular night’s foam was of interest because of its added dose of insect hormones. Designed to trigger premature metamorphosis in insects, Toothpick preferred not to see his human charges exposed to it. Prolonged exposure might upset their own endocrine balance. The molecules were similar enough.
Dawn found them breakfasting on sweet-things – orange, fist-sized fruits.
‘Hunters!’ warned Toothpick.
They dropped from the tree and crawled into a drainage ditch. Dan mimicked the belly-crawl and joined them. Moon rolled over on his back and held Toothpick up as high as he could.
‘Stay below the soil profile until we are sure where they are,’ warned old Moon.
Moses froze nervously. He heard rustling further down the ditch. Something was moving his way.
Toothpick scanned.
‘There it is – a Huntercraft. Must be a Hunt, the way they’re circling that hilltop – about three miles away.’
Moses remained immobile. The rustling came closer. Something touched his leg. He glanced up and saw a pair of eyes looking back – coweye’s eyes.
‘They’ve flushed something,’ announced Toothpick. ‘The craft set down on the hilltop for a second, and now it is moving away at a higher altitude. They probably put down one of the hunters.’
When the craft disappeared over a distant ridge, Moon and Dan crept up to the edge of their ditch to watch.
‘Quiet back there,’ Moon whispered.
‘Sorry,’ mumbled Moses under his breath.
Several minutes passed.
‘There he goes,’ said Moon, pointing down the valley. A naked figure running easily moved into the open and swerved toward the ditch.
‘It’s a buckeye all right – and something sure is chasing him,’ said Toothpick.
The naked prey passed them about a half-mile away and turned toward the canal. When he reached it he ran smoothly along the bank, apparently in no hurry. Then the hunter came – new suit of green-and-brown camouflage, helmet, and bow. He was fat and puffed strenuously. Suddenly he stopped, took a deep breath, paused a few seconds, and ran on smoothly.