Changeling iarcraa-1

by Stephen Leigh

  SilverSide declined her portion.

  “I don’t eat,” she said to the startled adolescent who handed the robot her share. It was only the simple truth-Silverside hadn’t even thought it strange. It simply was - afact that somehow she knew. “I cannot even if I wished. It is not necessary for me.”

  But she heard the BeastTalk grumbling and speculation from some of the others. “You see, KeenEye?” LifeCrier had said. “She is part of the Void, not of the earth. She is full of the spirit of the OldMother.”

  KeenEye responded with a howl of irritation. “Give her nothing, then, if she insists on playing the OldMother,” the leader barked. “And if she hasn’t the strength for the Hunt because of it, let the SharpFangs have her.” KeenEye growled and stalked from the cave herself, smelling of anger and resentment.

  The rest of the day, all the kin but LifeCrier avoided her, though she’d felt them watching and sniffed their uncertainty. Watching and wondering.

  The Hunt left PackHome in the early evening, after the heat of the day had subsided and the sunlight turned to evening’s gold-green. This time, none of the other kin would place themselves ahead of SilverSide. She was second in the ragged line of kin that trotted down the hill into the green, scent-filled forest.

  PackHome was quickly lost behind a screen of foliage and the Hunt was immersed in the sights and scents of the forest. Birds were beginning to settle in their roosts for the corning night; quick shadows flitting through the branches. Smaller animals scuttled through the underbrush as the pack moved quickly past. KeenEye led them into the glow of the setting sun, and SilverSide wondered at that-the perfect recall of her robotic mind could not forget LifeCrier’s remark that the WalkingStones, whatever they were, had driven away the game near the Hill of Stars.

  Yet KeenEye padded unerringly in that direction. Once one of the younger kin had questioned KeenEye’s path, and the leader had simply turned with a BeastTongue growl that sent the adolescent into submissive silence.

  After that, there was no more conversation within the pack at all. They followed KeenEye silently along the winding game trails.

  Had SilverSide been human or even kin, she might have marveled at the sights, scents, and sounds of the forest. She might have gaped at the papery pods the size of a youngling dangling from vines and wriggling with some gelatinous interior life. She might have stopped to sniff the perfumed sap oozing up from below a rocky slope. She might have been startled by the shrill rasp of tall weeds that were moving though there was no wind. She might have been captivated by the assorted small animals that leaped across the path or watched as the kin loped quickly by.

  Her positronic brain saw it all but without passion. She cared only for that which affected the intricate balance of the Three Laws. She noted that although the small life was abundant, there were few signs of the larger creatures that were food for the kin. She noted the growing apprehension of the pack as KeenEye continued westward.

  Thatresonated with the Laws.

  She saw how LifeCrier and the others watched her, waiting to see what the spirit of the OldMother would do, and she wondered if-just maybe-these priorities she felt were a reflection of a goddess’s will. Her logic circuits snickered at the thought but couldn’t entirely banish the possibility.

  The weight of possible danger, tweaking the First Law, nudged SilverSide into speech. She lengthened her stride, moving alongside KeenEye. She used careful KinSpeech, not wanting KeenEye to feel formally challenged. “I’ve heard LifeCrier and the others say that the meat animals have all left because of the WalkingStones. Is that true, KeenEye?”

  “The OldMother didn’t bother to tell you?”

  “No,” the robot answered. Then, when KeenEye said nothing further: “Is it true?” she asked again.

  A nod. “You have a problem with that?” KeenEye would not look at her. She continued to trot, her red tongue lolling out between the knives of teeth.

  The leader was leaving SilverSide no opening for further questions, forcing the confrontation she was obviously expecting.

  SilverSide hesitated. At last she dropped back into the pack again.

  They continued on.

  By midnight, the pack was very near where the Hill of Stars had glowed the night before. There was an odd silence in the woods, as if most of the creatures that normally lived here had gone. The very silence nudged SilverSide again.

  She did what none of the kin would have dared to do. The decision was simple; the reasoning complex.

  By deliberately failing to define “human,” by not even telling the robot that it was a robot, Janet Anastasi had forced upon her robot an unusual freedom of action and a liberal interpretation of the Three Laws. She’d made a construct that didn’t consider itself mechanical.

  She would likely have been pleased with what the robot had done so far, with SilverSide’s “creativity.”

  But SilverSide was still bound to the Laws. The Second Law demanded that she obey humans, and she had accepted the wolf-creatures as “human.” In a pack society, the leader spoke for all; therefore, KeenEye’s commands must carry more weight than that of any of the other kin.

  Yet the First Law demanded that she protect human life, and logic led her to favor the many over the few. If KeenEye was indeed leading the pack into danger, the First Law demanded action. Yet she’d already seen that the very lifestyle of the kin involved danger-the SharpFangs, the leadership challenges within the pack, the scarcity of food. One could not be “human” and avoid danger. That damped the strength of the First Law.

  She had to know more. She might not be forced to action, but she was compelled to ask.

  She ran swiftly in front of the leader. For a moment, SilverSide thought that KeenEye would simply ignore her and shoulder past, and the balance within her shifted again. But KeenEye drew up short. The pack came to a ragged halt behind KeenEye. SilverSide could smell their anticipation.

  “If the kin need food, what good does it do us to go west?” She used HuntTongue, stressing the importance of her question.

  KeenEye gave her only a low BeastTalk rumble deep in her throat. She glared and sat back on her hind legs, the clawed forepaws threateningly ready.

  KeenEye was not going to answer the question, SilverSide realized. But then LifeCrier pushed his grizzled muzzle forward and yapped support. “SilverSide asks the question we all have, KeenEye.”

  KeenEye looked back at the line of kin. They were staring back, quiet and very intent. SilverSide knew that the leader saw the subliminal challenge there. Most of the kin had gathered around LifeCrier, saying nothing but lending their unvoiced support to his question.

  Frost blue eyes turned back to SilverSide. “Do you challenge me now, SilverSide? Is that what the OldMother tells you?” she asked.

  “There is no food,” SilverSide said. “The forest here is empty of all the meat animals. That’s why I spoke. “

  “You don’t even eat the meat. Why should you care?”

  SilverSide searched within her mind. “I must do what is best for all kin.”

  “That is the leader ’ s task.” KeenEye growled for emphasis. “Only the leader’s task.”

  Balances changed again.

  The robot had no doubt that it was more intelligent than any of the kin. She knew things, whether inborn memory or the OldMother’s gift. She could see a hundred ways to improve the life of the kin. She was also physically stronger than any of them, and she could change her shape if need be.

  More intelligent. Stronger. The chosen of the OldMother. All that, coupled with KeenEye’s insistence on coming here, spoke through the Laws.

  The decision clicked in her mind, firm and certain. SilverSide could best obey the laws in her head by leading the pack.

  “I challenge you, KeenEye,” SilverSide said in HuntTongue.

  KeenEye seemed to sigh. Her eyes closed as if in momentary prayer. “As you wish,” she said.

  The wolf-creature came at SilverSide in a snarling rush,
her jaws wide open to rip at the robot’s throat. But SilverSide, with the superb reflexes Janet Anastasi had given her, was no longer there. She moved back on her hind feet and turned, sliding aside just enough so that KeenEye’s momentum took her past her. Silverside reached out and shoved KeenEye as she tried to turn. KeenEye nearly crashed headlong into a tree, falling and rolling hard. The leader bounded to her feet quickly, but there was a dazed glassiness in her eyes.

  KeenEye stood two-legged, howled at SilverSide, and leaped, fingers out to claw the robot.

  This time SilverSide allowed KeenEye to strike her. Claws scraped on her metal flanks without leaving a mark. KeenEye howled in anger, frustration, and pain, and raked at SilverSide again, trying for the eyes. They were vulnerable, if her skin was not. SilverSide flinched.

  Rearing back, SilverSide blocked the curving blow and grabbed KeenEye’s hand/paw, twisting the joint. KeenEye screeched, though SilverSide was careful not to break any bones. Slowly, she forced the wrist backward-as KeenEye thrashed to get free, as she spat at the robot, as she clawed with her free hand. Nothing she did seemed to hurt the robot. SilverSide was far too strong for the wolf-creature.

  SilverSide forced KeenEye down to the grass and pulled her over on her back.

  “Submit,” she whispered to the leader, and it seemed the others heard an odd sympathy in her voice. She did not seem happy in her victory.

  “Kill me,” KeenEye grunted back, her lips bared over her fangs. She snapped uselessly at SilverSide. “I will not submit. Kill me.”

  SilverSide put more pressure on the hold. Ligaments groaned. “Submit,” she said again. “I need you to help me, and you are useless to the pack dead. Give me your throat.”

  The defiance went out of KeenEye. The paw was limp in SilverSide’s grasp. KeenEye tilted her muzzle back in submission.

  Yet even as SilverSide stood in triumph over KeenEye, there was a crashing of underbrush behind her and a screech of pain from one of the kin.

  First Law reaction whirled SilverSide around as a youngling was hurled through the air to fall near SilverSide. He rolled on the ground bleeding from a deep gash in his side and yelping in pain.

  “A WalkingStone!” LifeCrier shouted. “Beware!”

  SilverSide’s lips drew back in a BeastTongue snarl.

  Standing over the wounded kin was the apparition that had just burst through the trees. It stood on two legs, its hands clenched into fists encased in a shiny metal skin. It was far larger than any of the kin, and if what it had done to the youngling was an indication, it was immensely strong. Behind the featureless head, SilverSide could hear motors whirring softly.

  It smelled of lightning and stone.

  The head swiveled. The apparition seemed to regard SilverSide strangely.

  Then, with a swiftness that surprised her, it charged!

  Chapter 7. A Fight

  The pack was milling in confusion. LifeCrier howled a lament for the downed youngling as those in the direct path of the WalkingStone scattered. Only SilverSide was immune to the panic.

  She could only respond as the Laws allowed her, and the First Law left her no choice.

  She lunged forward, slamming herself hard into the chest of the constructed thing that had attacked the kin without warning. There was no hesitation to her action at all-it was a pure First Law response to protect the life of “humans.”

  Her jaws closed on an unyielding metallic arm; with a strength equal to her own, the WalkingStone flung SilverSide away. She rolled to soften the impact, allowing her body to deform to absorb the shock.

  She whirled back to attack.

  LifeCrier and KeenEye had rallied the others. All but the carriers tethered to the travois formed a ragged circle around the injured youngling, protecting him from the WalkingStone. They snarled and snapped, making quick thrusts of their own but staying out of range of the powerful arms.

  The WalkingStone had stopped, pointing a finger at the pack. SilverSide, in motion, saw the fingertip become round and a dark opening appear at its apex.

  Weapon!The word screamed in SilverSide’s head.

  “KeenEye!” she shouted. “Scatter!”

  She hurled herself at the WalkingStone’s extended arm.

  Metal clashed against metal. A line of searing, intense light cut a crazy swath harmlessly through foliage as SilverSide’s rush knocked the WalkingStone’s arm aside. The kin yelped and retreated again.

  Gears whirred menacingly inside the WalkingStone. The smell of it made SilverSide snarl. The featureless, impassive face turned toward SilverSide, who faced it defiantly. Deliberately, the WalkingStone pointed its deadly, laser-tipped finger at her. The aiming beam tracked brilliant red across her body; the skin glowed white just behind. The ferocious heat translated as pain to SilverSide’s positronic brain; the “human” responses overlaid there made her yelp in response though the tough metal alloy was only scorched, not yet melted. Still, the attack disrupted circuitry to that side of her body.

  She went down.

  The WalkingStone turned its attention back to the pack, now huddled in a knot around the youngling “SilverSide?” LifeCrier called, her fear-scent strong. “What do we do?”

  SilverSide tried to answer. Nothing happened. Her vocal circuits were temporarily gone as well.

  KeenEye and LifeCrier tried to rally the kin.

  The pack had its own peculiar method of fighting, as SilverSide had seen before on their way from her Egg to PackHome. She knew what KeenEye’s command barks said.

  “Circle. Keep moving. Keep the WalkingStone busy, but don’t let it touch you.” A SharpFang would have been dealt with in much the same way, the pack whirling around it like a clawing, biting tornado, dashing in behind to nip at ankles and then leaping back, harrying the creature until-exhausted and frustrated-it gave them a fatal opening. Then they would swarm in as one and bear it down.

  Such tactics gave the kin the ability to deal with carnivores far larger and stronger than themselves.

  Such tactics were horribly ill-suited for their current foe.

  It required no effort for SilverSide to picture what would happen if the WalkingStone used its laser on any of the kin. The urgent First Law need to respond drove everything else from SilverSide’s mind.

  With the left side of her body still shut down, there was only one possibility. With anything fashioned to resemble a living creature, the joints-neck, elbows, knees-are the most fragile area. SilverSide knew that: as a shapechanger herself, structural dynamics were part of her core knowledge. Her malleable body shifted, altered. The mostly immobile left side she rounded as best she could; everything else she metamorphosed into a massive, coiled muscle.

  She gathered herself. Aimed.

  Leapt.

  Metal boomed against metal like a thunderclap.

  The WalkingStone’s neck was stabilized with supports, but none were designed to withstand the tremendous hammer blow SilverSide represented. There was a screech and a wail of stressed steel. Welds popped as the head was suddenly canted at an acute angle. The glowing eyes dimmed. The thing staggered, the laser fired wildly and high. Its knees buckled, it seemed to wheeze mechanically.

  It fell.

  As it fell, SilverSide heard its voice in her head. Oddly, SilverSide understood it, for the thing spoke in the language she’d been born with. Central, under attack, badly damaged and shutting down……The voice trailed off. None of the kin looked as if they’d heard it.

  SilverSide had fallen herself, resuming her wolf shape. As her body cooled, control returned. She managed to limp slowly to her feet, and stood on her hind legs over the fallen WalkingStone. It twitched spasmodically, but seemed no threat. Its mental voice was silent. As SilverSide watched, a plume of thin, acrid smoke came from the broken neck, and all movement stopped.

  SilverSide lifted her muzzle and gave a BeastTalk howl of triumph as she’d seen the other kin do after a kill. The others howled with her.

  LifeCrier and KeenEye padded ov
er. Both groveled in front of SilverSide, baring their necks in ritual submission. “You are the Bane of WalkingStones,” LifeCrier declared. “You saved our lives and the lives of all the kin here.”

  “Yes,” SilverSide answered. It was not immodesty; it was simply truth.

  KeenEye rose, her eyes unreadable. “I was wrong,” she said. “What LifeCrier said of you is true. You are the wisest of us. You are the OldMother’s gift.” She paused “You are now the leader of kin.”

  “Yes,” SilverSide said.

  The decision echoed in all her judgment circuits. “Yes, I am,” she repeated.

  Chapter 8. A Hurried Departure

  The hard thing under his cheek seemed to be a foot. It was attached to a very smooth and shapely leg, and at the top of the leg…

  “Derec,” a woman’s sleepy contralto said warningly from farther down the bed. A warm breath tickled his shin. “I’m very, very cross when rudely awakened.”

  “You don’t like it?”

  Ariel wriggled under his attention. “It’s not…0” she breathed, then sighed. “I’m just tired.”

  “Too tired?”

  She gasped. “Oh, you…” In a flurry of bedcovers, she whirled around. Her mouth touched his. She rolled him on his back.

  Much later, they snuggled together. Derec reached out from the cover to touch the contact that caused the wall of the bedroom to become one-way transparent. Though in the middle of Aurora’s largest city, there was nothing to be seen but green, open expanse. They looked out over an expanse of a lush rolling meadow, crowned with a stand of magnificent trees. The orange-red sun of Aurora slashed through the branches, wedges of light outlined in a miasma of morning fog.

  A native whose whole life had been spent on the planet might have shrugged-beautiful Auroran sunrises were commonplace enough to have become the norm-but in the year since Derec and Ariel had been on the planet, they hadn’t yet become blast. They gazed at the display as if the awakening world had arranged it strictly for their benefit.