“It’s very lovely,” Ariel whispered.
“Like you.”
“Flatterer.”
“Will it get me anywhere?”
“We’ll see. Maybe. A little later, anyway.”
“There’s no reason to wait.”
“Greedy this morning, aren’t we? Well, you’ll just have to cultivate a little patience.”
Ariel kissed him again and rolled from the bed. With a lithe grace, she moved across the room. She’d recovered entirely from her ordeal in Robot City, or at least it seemed that way. The disease that had warped her personality had been cured, her injuries healed. She had left Robot City and returned to normal.
But not Derec. The chemfets-tiny viral replicas of the Robot City material developed by his father, Dr. Avery-had been implanted in Derec. Though he’d gained control of the chemfets after they’ d threatened to take him over, the ordeal had left him permanently linked to the city. Even now he could, ifhe wished, listen to the inner conversations in his body and hear the sounds of the Robot City central computer, across light-years of distance. He could give the city orders, direct the actions of its myriad robots, alter its programming…
Derec did not enjoy playing god, no matter how minor a one. He didn’t enjoy being shackled to his father’s mad creation. He especially didn’t enjoy the fact that he didn’t yet know the full extent of that inner universe.
They were still chained to Avery, even now. Their return to Aurora and the tale of Robot City had made news everywhere on that world. They were celebrities. Even now, they could not go out in the public areas of the city without someone coming up to them.
The thoughts drove away his good humor. He looked out at the Auroran dawn and suddenly saw nothing. The dawn might as well have been a computerized image projected on a wall. He sighed.
“I know that look,” Ariel said from the open door of the personal. “You’re brooding again.”
“No, I’m not.”
“You are too. I’ve been with you too long not to know. You’re thinking about Robot City again.”
There was an edge to her voice that made Derec grimace. Theirs had been a roller-coaster ride of a relationship: they never seemed to be able to settle into any semblance of normalcy. When things were good, they were very good indeed. And when they were bad…
That was Avery’s legacy as well-many of the memories Derec and Ariel shared were not pleasant. For the months they’d been trapped in Robot City, Ariel’s personality had been in a steady, disintegrating spiral, fluctuating between vivacious and darkly sullen.
At least she’d escaped. At least she’d escaped from that planet and been cured.
Derec could never leave Robot City. It would always be there within him. It was his, his responsibility, whether he wanted it or not.
“Derec, stop it,” Ariel said warningly.
“Stop what?”
“I’m not going to answer something that obvious. Figure it out yourself.”
He knew he should have apologized then. He knew he should have smiled deprecatingly and shrugged, should have risen himself and kissed her until she forgot the argument and the dawn was again something beautiful to see.
But he didn’t.
“Sorry I’m so stupid,” he said bitterly.
Ariel’s face was red with irritation, her eyes narrowed and her hands clenched into angry fists. “Derec, don’t spoil the morning, please.”
“I ’ mnot the one who knows what everyone else is thinking. It seems to me that you claimed that ability. I thought everything was going fine.”
“You’re being childish.”
“And you’re being arrogant.”
“Arrogant? Damn it, Derec…Derec?” She stopped. Derec was no longer listening to her. He was standing in the middle of the room, his gaze inward and blind.
The call had entered Derec’s mind with an urgency that was almost painful. Aurora, the dawn outside the window, Ariel’s voice: they’d all disappeared in the frantic need of the message. The chemfets relayed the message to him.
Under attack,it said. The call was faint, as if coming from a great distance, much farther than the Robot City he knew. Request immediate help.
“What is it, Derec?” Ariel asked again, a look of concern furrowing her brow. Her anger was lost in her worry for him. Slowly, he came back to an awareness of the room around him.
“I’m…I’m not sure.” He was still holding his head with a look of inward concentration, listening to those whispering pleas only he could hear. “It’s the chemfets again. I’m…I’m getting a series of coordinates and a distress signal from a source claiming to be the central computer. It says it’s Robot City, but-Mandlebrot!” he called suddenly.
The robot slipped quickly from a niche on one side of the bedroom. Derec had assembled the robot from assorted parts, a hodgepodge of models including a right arm constructed of what he called Avery material-infinitely malleable and adjustable. The patchwork-quilt effect lent the robot, to say the least, a unique look, and Derec had a vast affection for him.
“Mandelbrot, you’re also linked to Robot City,” he said to the robot. “Did you just receive a distress call?”
“No, Master Derec, I did not.”
“If I give you a set of coordinates, can you tell me whether they’re anywhere near Robot City?”
“I can link with the Auroran Net and access records there.”
“Good.” Derec rattled off the coordinates he’d heard in his head. Mandelbrot stood silently a moment, then spoke.
“Those coordinates are for a region well outside human space and distant from Robot City, though in the same arm of the galaxy. If I have not received the message you received, and if those coordinates represent the actual source of the call, then I can see two possibilities: first, that Or. Avery himself has established a new Robot City somewhere, perhaps by using the Keys of Perihelion to jump to another world. Or, secondly, that the distress call is from a Robot City that is an offshoot of the original. We know that some of the Avery robots were sent out by the central computer to start new sites on other planets. Can you communicate with the computer yourself!”
Derec concentrated, but the wispy tendrils of the repeating call were gone as if they had never been there. “No,” he said. “There’s nothing now.”
“There’s a third, even more likely, possibility you’ve both missed,” Ariel said, hands on hips. “It was your imagination. You’ve done nothing but worry about Robot City since we left. “
“It wasn’t my imagination,” Derec insisted. “It was real. I know the difference, Ariel.”
“You said it was faint.”
“It came through the chemfets. I can guarantee that.”
“All right,” Ariel sighed. “All right. I’m tired of arguing. It’s gone now, so let’s forget it. Mandelbrot, you can go back to the niche.”
As Mandelbrot turned obediently, Derec shook his head. “No. I can’t just forget it, Ariel. It’s not that simple. You don’t seem to realize that, to a large extent, I am Robot City now. I’m part of it; I’m responsible.”
Ariel whirled around at that, her face angry. Her finger dug into his chest, prodding.
“No.No, you’re not, Derec. Your father’s responsible. Avery. Without his poisoning you with the chemfets, without his interference and his insane schemes, none of this would have happened-to any of us. You’re not responsible, Derec, any more than I am or Mandelbrot is or Wolruf is. You can’t blame yourself for any of it, and there’s nothing you can do about it. “
“There’s trouble,” Derec insisted. “I can feel it. I have to go see. Mandelbrot, I want you to see that our ship is provisioned and ready to go by noon.”
Mandelbrot hesitated, caught for a second between the conflicting orders, but Derec was his primary master. His orders took precedence over Ariel’s. The robot nodded and moved to the computer terminal on the wall. Mandelbrot activated the screen and opened a line to the Aurora Port computer.
<
br /> Ariel shook her head, dark hair swaying with savage motion. She jabbed at Derec’s chest again with the forefinger. “You’re not doing it, Derec. No. If this phantom city in your mind has problems, then let it deal with them on its own. That’s what the central computer is for. And if it’s Avery again, if he’s used his Keys to jump from Robot City to some other place he’s set up, it’ll be a trap just like the other. I’m not at all interested in stepping into his deadly little webs again. “
“I don’t want you to. I wasn’t intending to have you go along. I thought just Mandelbrot and myself…”
The words didn’t come out quite as he’d intended. Because I don ’ t want you to get hurt again. he should have added. Because I care too much about you. But her face was already clouded, and somehow the words wouldn’t come now.
Ariel nodded, muscles bunched as she set her jaw. “Fine,” she said, her words clipped and short. “Just fine. I’m sorry I’m such a burden.”
“Ariel…”
But she was no longer listening. She went to her closet, snatched a loose smock from a hook, and tugged it on. She brushed her fingers through her hair and gave Derec one last smouldering gaze.
Then she stalked from the house.
“Mandelbrot,” Derec said after the reverberations of her exit had stopped echoing through the house. “You should be glad that you don’t have to deal with emotions.”
“It has been my observation that human feelings are much like fruit.”
“Hmm? I’m not sure I understand.”
“If handled roughly, both feelings and fruit are easily bruised.”
To that, Derec didn’t have a reply.
Chapter 9. The Hill Of Stars
SilverSide knew the normal pack routine with a kill.
The hunters would first tear open the abdomen and feed themselves on the warm, pulsing blood-rich meat. Afterward, their own appetites sated, they would use their crude flint-knapped knives and flay the carcass, cutting it into manageable chunks to be put on the carriers.
Now the kin circled uneasily around the dead WalkingStone. LifeCrier reached out and tapped at the thing’s stomach with a claw. “It’s stone, SilverSide,” the old wolf-creature said. “A magical creature from the FirstBeast. There’s nothing for us to eat. It’s a mockery.”
SilverSide came up to the body, the other kin moving aside for her. “KeenEye,” she asked, “have any of the WalkingStones been killed before?”
KeenEye seemed grateful for the attention, as SilverSide had expected. “No,” she said. “These are the Hunters of the WalkingStones; there are other kinds near the Hill of Stars, but they never leave that place. Every time before, we ran from the Hunters when we couldn’t hurt them. They’ve killed three hands of kin and more in the three dances of the moons since they came. The fire from their fingers kills.”
Three hands of kin-with the wolf-creature’s four-fingered hands, that meant that over a dozen kin had fallen to the WalkingStones in three months. SilverSide had seen perhaps thirty to forty of the wolf-creatures at PackHome. Twelve members of the tribe was a significant loss. It was no wonder that LifeCrier and the others were looking for divine intervention.
SilverSide crouched down alongside the WaIkingStone. She examined the thing carefully. Her optical circuits noted a seam running along the abdomen. She slid a claw tip carefully along the edge, narrowing and flattening the claw so that it slipped easily under the lip of metal.
She pried up. Magnetic catches held tenaciously, then finally gave as she increased the tension. The abdomen covering lifted, revealing an interior of miniature servo motors, linkages, wires, and circuit boards. The kin around SilverSide gasped.
“There’s no blood;’ KeenEye said in SilverSide’s ear, marveling. “No muscles, no meat, no stomach. How does it move?”
“Magic,” LifeCrier said again. “The Eternal Ones have set them in motion against SilverSide and the OldMother.”
The answer sounded right to SilverSide. She could not refute LifeCrier, not with the strange gaps in her knowledge. LifeCrier had told her of the struggles among the gods. SilverSide had found nothing to disprove that she had been sent by the OldMother to serve humans. Given that, it was just as likely that the WalkingStones may well have been sent by FirstBeast or some other rival of the OldMother.
Still…
“The Hunter is not magic,” SilverSide told them. ‘The WalkingStones are MadeThings. They are tools, like our flint knives or the travois. They are like the dolls the cubs fashion from sticks, only the WalkingStones are stuffed with stone chips and vines from the Void. The power in them allows them to walk, and they speak with a voice you can hear only in your head.
“Look,” she said and plunged her forepaw hand into the WalkingStone’s entrails. Her claws emerged again fisted around the colorful intestines of the creature: a trailing, knotted coil of wires. The kin howled at the sight, half in lament, half in wonder.
“These are the guts of kin’s worst enemy,” SilverSide said. “The cubs back at PackHome could at least eat a SharpFang. Even if SharpFangs kill kin, they can also feed us. But not these creatures. This is the inedible meat of the WalkingStones.”
“What are we going to do, SilverSide?” LifeCrier asked, and his question was echoed by the others around them.
SilverSide thought for a moment. Then she tugged hard at the array of wires. Bright sparks spat angrily, arcing and dying on the ground. SilverSide flung the tangle down.
“Since they will not let us live, we will kill them,” she said.
A robotics expert would probably have been simply appalled and frightened and ordered the destruction of the robot. Janet Anastasi, SilverSide’s creator, might have herself been concerned with the robot’s behavior, but she would have also been intensely interested.
SilverSide’s mindset had nothing of a human being in it at all. The Three Laws were there, yes, but they had now been completely reshaped and changed. As the robots of Aurora, Solaria, Earth, and other human worlds were shaped and designed to mimic human behavior, so SilverSide had shaped and designed herself to mimic the kin. Indeed, because she had no conception that she was a constructed thing herself, she was kin, and she interpreted the inbuilt Three Laws of her positronic brain in light of her own “humanity.”
The WalkingStones threatened the Kin. They killed kin. And though she could have led the kin away from PackHome, that also would have meant the probable loss of life. The wolf-creatures were territorial hunters, and the neighboring pack-leaders had already warned them. SilverSide’s pack couldn’t move into another pack’s territory without being challenged and having to fight other wolf-creatures, nor would another pack have allowed them to hunt in their own territory.
Finding another viable home that was not already claimed was at best a dubious hope, and KeenEye and LifeCrier had already told her that the WalkingStones were expanding their holdings-even if SilverSide’s pack left, another pack would eventually have to confront the WalkingStones when they might be even more powerful.
SilverSide had reluctantly come to the decision to stay and confront the situation directly.
Yes, kin might die, but more kin would likely die if they left.
A human robot might have looked for yet another, more peaceful solution. But SilverSide was a carnivore, a hunter even though she herself did not eat at all; she took the carnivore’s solution.
Having accepted the wolf-creatures as human, she accepted their mores. Without further proof, she also accepted their mythology. The OldMother had sent her. She was chosen for the task. The WalkingStones might be intelligent, but they were made by another god and therefore were not “human” themselves. Though SilverSide couldn’t perform outside the Three Laws, she would do what she had to do within their limits.
As her new mindset perceived them.
What the carnivore could not avoid, it attacked. Dr. Anastasi’s experiment had worked perfectly well. Her robot had become something other. A very dangerous ot
her.
Still, if it weren’t for the fact that SilverSide had just killed one of the hated creatures, the rest of the kin might not have accepted her statement. A challenge to her leadership might have been the immediate outcome.
Even so, there were questions.
“We’ve tried killing the WalkingStones before,” KeenEye said. She used KinSpeech rather than HuntTongue, not wanting SilverSide to think she was offering formal challenge. SilverSide listened to the old leader, sitting back on her hind legs and braiding a necklace from the WalkingStone’s wires. “They’re not like SharpFangs. SharpFangs are strong but very stupid. These Hunter WalkingStones can kill by pointing their fingers, and our claws and teeth do nothing.
“This one died,” SilverSide said. She placed the necklace around her neck; the other kin howled softly at the sight.
“Yes, but it’s the first.”
“It won’t be the last. I will show you ways to deal with them. This is our territory, not the WalkingStones’. They are driving away the game we live on and making this a barren place. Once the WalkingStones and their Hill of Stars are gone, the game will return and the kin can live as they please. We will take our territory back again.”
“You will show us how to kill them?”
“I will.”
KeenEye paused. She looked from the dead WalkingStone to SilverSide. “Then lead us, SilverSide,” KeenEye said in a rising shout and let out a glad cry in BeastTalk.
SilverSide took a strand of wires from the gutted Hunter. She quickly plaited another necklace from the colorful wire and knotted the bright coil around KeenEye’s neck. Carefully, she then did the same with each of them. “There;’ she said when it was done. “We wear the signs of our victory. Now, follow me. We must learn more about our enemy.”
SilverSide dropped to all fours. With a quick lope, she ran into the forest, moving westward toward the Hill of Stars.
Howling, the rest of the kin ran behind her.
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