Changeling iarcraa-1

by Stephen Leigh

  Again her wolf shape aided her as it had before; she outdistanced the Hunters quickly. But she could still hear them, could still smell that sharp tang of steel and lubricants. They would track her forever, she realized, and if they did that, they would find PackHome.

  You cannot allow that to happen.The First Law was plain here.

  A new positronic pathway opened, glimmering. Another robot might have kept running until it ran out of power or was caught. Another robot might have been trapped by inbuilt programming.

  The Hunters were tracking a wolf, and though she had chosen that shape, it was not the only one she could be.

  SilverSide’s body began to alter. The great bulk of the wolf collapsed in on itself, the body becoming much smaller. The excess mass SilverSide squeezed outward, thinning it until the alloy was as thin as she could make it.

  Great, powerful wings overshadowed her now. The wings beat, cupping air.

  SilverSide flew.

  She was a lousy bird. She was too massive, and there was nothing she could do to alter that. She didn’t fly well, and she couldn’t fly fast or high, but she flew.

  Her moonshadow passed over the Hunters moving through the woods below.

  The WalkingStones didn’t even look up. A wolf that changed into a bird was not in their experience.

  “You’re certain you left them behind?”

  The sun was just peeking over the edge of the hills, and most of the kin had come out to greet SilverSide as, in wolf form again, she loped from the forest. KeenEye prowled the packed ground outside the entrance to PackHome. She kept looking back into the fog drifting through the shafts of light under the trees.

  “I am mostly certain,” SilverSide replied. One of the pups came up to her and playfully nipped her back leg. She gently nudged the pup aside, and it ran back to its mother, yelping. “I was heading south away from the Hill of Stars, not toward here at all.”

  “They will follow your tracks and your scent.” KeenEye would not let go of the argument, but at least it was in respectful KinSpeech and not HuntTongue, where SilverSide might have been compelled to challenge her.

  “I became a bird. I left no tracks, and the wind took my scent.”

  “You became a bird…” KeenEye’s stance stiffened; she crouched slightly, offensively. That said more than her words.

  “You doubt SilverSide, KeenEye?” LifeCrier asked mockingly. “You saw the Egg. You’ve seen her kill a Hunter, which none of us could do. You saw her kill another of the WalkingStones and escape the Hunters’ lightnings. We all know she’s from the OldMother, and yet you scoff. 1 believe her, KeenEye, because I have listened to the tales of the OldMother. I have faith. What of the rest of you?”

  The kin gave barks of agreement, and SilverSide could scent their pride in her. KeenEye’s lips lifted, exposing teeth.

  “It doesn’t matter,” she said disdainfully. “Bird or not, we’ve still done nothing about the WalkingStones. All we’ve accomplished is to anger them, and if they come here, to PackHome, we will all die. SilverSide might be able to kill one, but what of the rest of us?”

  KeenEye’s tail thrashed dirt. She fingered the necklace SilverSide had given her. “How many here have seen the bodies of kin slain by the Hunters?” she continued. “How many of you have pups who are thin because the meat is scarce? How many mothers have little milk to give the litters? We can’t stand against the WalkingStones. And that is true with or without SilverSide, with or without the OldMother.”

  “Then we can go elsewhere,” SilverSide suggested. “Give the WalkingStones this place and find another. “

  “Where? We’ve already discussed that. The other packs already watch their borders, knowing the trouble we’re having. No other pack will let us into their territory.”

  “Then you are telling me that we must stay here,” SilverSide said. “This is something I need to know-KeenEye, LifeCrier, all the rest of you. I do not know this world as you do. The OldMother left you the task of teaching me about the kin. Must we stay here?”

  They nodded, howling softly. “In that, I’m afraid I must agree with KeenEye,” LifeCrier said. “Our pack is already weak and small. In a fight with other pack-kin, we would all die.”

  That answer gave the logic circuits in SilverSide’s brain the information they needed. Electrical synapses closed. It was simple.

  The First Law demanded that human life must be protected. Her positronic brain, like every robot’s, logically resolved inevitable conflicts to protect the many over the few. If the kin stayed here, the conflict would be human against WalkingStone. If they moved, another, uglier conflict must be confronted, and that would pit human against human. SilverSide could not kill humans.

  That realization allowed her to make an unpleasant decision. “Then we will stay here,” she said, “and my choice is made for me.”

  “What choice?” KeenEye demanded.

  “The choice to fight the WalkingStones.”

  “We can ’ t fight them,” KeenEye insisted.

  “I know a way,” SilverSide said. “I do not like it, but I know a way.”

  “Then speak. Tell us,” KeenEye said, and the insolence was back in her voice, in her stance, in her smell. SilverSide stared at KeenEye, daring the former leader to challenge her again. SilverSide let her body enlarge slightly, her already massive chest puffing out. KeenEye growled and backed away.

  “Kin will probably die, my way,” SilverSide said, still looking at KeenEye. “But you tell me there is no other choice that is not worse. If you tell me wrong, you may well destroy the pack. If there is any way for us to go elsewhere, tell me now.”

  “There is no way,” KeenEye said, snorting. She pawed at the ground with a clawed hand. “There are other packs all around us: One Eye’s, ScarredPaw’s. They’ve already said they will kill any of our litter-kin who trespass. Ask LifeCrier-he can tell you of the battles between packs. I didn’t lie. And I’m not afraid to fight. Kin die all the time-it is part of the Hunt, it is part of defending territory.”

  “Then it is time to hunt WalkingStones,” SilverSide answered.

  “It is time to challenge them.”

  Chapter 14. Around The Campfire

  It was difficult to hear anything above the racket Derec and Mandelbrot made moving through the woods. Derec quickly realized that there was no hope he’d be able to survive by hunting for food. He’d starve first.

  They’d seen very little wildlife except during their rest periods. Otherwise, whatever animals lived here simply fled from the clamor of their passage. Shapes skittered through the trees ahead of them, birds took to the air with shrill cries. But a new sound intruded, making Derec cock his head quizzically.

  “Did you hear that, Mandelbrot?”

  Derec had stopped, leaning on the walking stick he’d cut from a dead branch and breathing heavily. They were struggling up a slope tangled with dense, close underbrush and tenacious, sticky-leaved vines; the place seemed to have been designed to give them trouble. The sun was already behind the hill and dropping rapidly, and Derec’s legs itched wherever the plants had scraped skin through his clothing. Mandelbrot, ahead of him and sounding in dire need of an overhaul, was moving very slowly with his malfunctioning leg. The robot stopped and turned his head around, the neck grating metallically.

  “I have heard several things, Master Derec. Which sound were you referring to?”

  “The howling. There-you hear that?”

  Very faintly, a mournful wail greeted the dusk. Another voice joined the first, then several others. The mournful chorus continued for several seconds, then went back to the solo voice once more. The forest seemed suddenly very dim and dangerous. Derec shivered involuntarily.

  “That sends cold chills down my back,” he said.

  “There are thermal blankets in the pack,” Mandelbrot told Derec. “Let me get one for you-”

  Derec smiled. “It’s not that kind of chill. It sounds like recordings I’ve heard of wolves-made before
they became extinct.”

  The barking howls began again, echoing and reverberating among the slopes. Mandelbrot’s neck joint screeched again as the robot looked up slope. “Their voices are complex,” he said. “In some ways it reminds me of Wolruf’s language. “

  Mention of the caninoid alien’s name made Derec nod; he missed Wolruf, missed her quick wit and odd temper. “I wish it were, believe me. At least then we might get out of this mess. We have to find a place to camp for the night, Mandelbrot. Any level and halfway open space will do. I don’t want to get caught out here in the open during the dark.”

  “My data banks say that even in the days before Earth was settled, most wild animals were afraid of humans. They very rarely attacked anyone without provocation.”

  “Well, I’m not going to count on them having been fed the same data. Let’s keep going, Mandelbrot. Maybe at the top of this hill…though from the size of it I’m beginning to think we should promote it to mountain.”

  It took them another hour to struggle to the summit. There, the trees thinned out and finally disappeared on a wind-swept, rocky ledge that, looming above the surrounding hills, gave them an excellent vantage point.

  Every last muscle in Derec’s body ached from the exertion of the climb. His broken arm throbbed and burned; he was breathing in quick gasps, afraid to breathe any deeper because of his ribs. Derec swung his pack down with a grimace and found the medical supplies. An EndPain injection allowed him to keep moving. Mandelbrot, every joint rasping, helped Derec inflate the tent and arrange their pitifully few supplies. Derec started a small fire in a circle of rocks, and they sat on the hilltop watching the stars appear in the dark blue of the zenith, sprinkled across the sky in their millions.

  “They certainly are persistent, those wolves or whatever they are.” The howls had continued to serenade them as they’d made camp. They seemed to be coming from the west, in the same general direction they were heading though several hills over. Derec sat on the edge of the ledge and tossed pebbles into the trees below, listening to them crash through the branches. He looked at the shadowy landscape ahead of them and grimaced. “Look at that. You’d figure the hills would all have to run north and south-we’re going to walk five kilometers up and down for every one due west.”

  Derec glanced over at the robot standing alongside him. It didn’t seem to have heard. “Mandelbrot?”

  “I am sorry, Master Derec. I was listening to them.”

  “Just make sure they don’t get closer.” Derec threw another stone, then squinted toward the west. “How well are you seeing, Mandelbrot?”

  “My night vision is very poor due to the crash damage. It is no better than yours.”

  “Uh-huh. Take a look anyway and tell me if that isn’t a glow in the northwest, maybe four or five of those hills over. I didn’t notice it before, but with the darkness-”

  Mandelbrot peered in the direction Derec was pointing. “I see a patch of light reflecting from underneath clouds…”

  Then, for a moment, they were both silent, listening to a voice that whispered in both their heads.

  All units: central computer under attack. All units….

  The voice was very faint. It faded even as Derec tried to get the voice to respond.

  “My fa-” Derec began, then stopped himself. He hated the man too much to call him that, and on Aurora it meant very little anyway. “Mandelbrot, it must be Avery.”

  “It is possible. “

  “It’s more than possible. It explains everything: the distress call, the central computer not responding to the chemfets, our crash-landing-everything. He could have used a Key, jumped to the Compass Tower here, and started disrupting the city.”

  “Why?” Mandelbrot asked. “The first Robot City was his creation. “

  “He was also very disturbed that I could control it. Maybe he’s decided to destroy all the others.”

  “It is possible, I suppose,” Mandelbrot admitted. “But we will not know until we arrive.”

  “We have to push harder, Mandelbrot. The city’s in trouble.”

  “Why should that concern you so much, Master Derec?”

  The question sounded like one Ariel might have asked, and the reminder hurt more than his physical pain. Derec scowled. “It just does. Maybe it’s the chemfets-some chemical bonding with the city that’s due to them. I don’t know, Mandelbrot. All I can tell you is that I hurt when the city hurts, and it makes me want to do something about it. Can you understand that?”

  “I can, Master Derec. What you describe sounds very similar to the compulsion of the Three Laws within every robot. And if we must push ourselves tomorrow, I would suggest that you rest,” the robot said gently. “You are exhausted, and I cannot carry you.”

  Derec wanted to argue, but Mandelbrot was right. He could feel the weariness; and the effort it took to get to his feet convinced him. “Then I’m going to try to sleep. What about you?”

  “I do not know how much longer I will be able to walk. The less I move, the better. I will stand here and watch. Have a good sleep.”

  His dreams were haunted by his father, who could take on the shape of a wolf. Ariel was there, but wolf-Avery chased her away, and though Derec tried to run after her, his feet were leaden and horribly slow.

  Derec awoke with a start. For a moment, he was disoriented and nearly panicked until the nagging pain in his arm and ribs reminded him. He opened the tent and poked his head out through the flaps.

  It was still dark. Two moons were in the sky; one high, the larger one low to the west. Backlight against the moonlight, he could see Mandelbrot, standing motionless at the edge of the overlook and staring out into the night. He could hear the wolf-creatures baying at the moon.

  “Mandelbrot?”

  “Everything is fine, Master Derec. I was listening to them. Their voices; it is almost like a language.”

  ‘Their voices make me want to avoid them at all costs. They’re probably discussing how tasty my bones and your metal would be. Good night, Mandelbrot.”

  “Good night, Master Derec.”

  He lay there for a long time in the darkness, not wanting to go to sleep. He didn’t know if it was because Avery would be waiting for him in his dreams, or because he was afraid Ariel would not.

  Chapter 15. Feint And Thrust

  SilverSide’s creator herself might have been distressed by the robot’s logic. Janet Anastasi might well have been appalled and considered SilverSide’s positronic mind to be hopelessly damaged. It is impossible to say.

  Surely an Auroran robot would have been crippled, if not driven into outright positronic lockup, by the implications of this decision. But to SilverSide, the Three Laws were simply the morals of the OldMother, and her logic and her interpretations were not shaped by human standards, but by those of the kin.

  Inclined to respond physically and aggressively to a challenge.

  It took the pack another day to prepare, a long day of using their “found” tools such as sticks and flat stones, their few flint-shaped blades and planes. No one was exempt; even the very old and the very young helped as far as they were able.

  After SilverSide was satisfied with the arrangements, she sent most of the kin back to PackHome after warning them to take a circuitous, long route. She sent some of the hunting kin with them for protection, not wanting to leave PackHome entirely undefended should her plan fail. KeenEye and LifeCrier insisted on remaining behind with SilverSide, and she chose another half-dozen of the pack to stay as well.

  As the sun set, they said their farewells to the rest of the kin and watched them make their way among the trees. When they were gone, SilverSide howled a long challenge to the rising moons and turned to the others.

  “Now, let us go find a WalkingStone to kill,” she said.

  The city had changed, even in the two days since she had last seen it. It had encroached farther on the forest, spilling from the valley that had confined it. Worker WalkingStones with roaring chainsaw
s for arms were tearing at the trees at the leading edge of the city; farther in toward the Hill of Stars, everything seemed to have changed. The ice-blue building to the west had been farther over and shorter the last time, and the flying buttresses linking it to the building alongside had not been there at all. The cluster of geodesic domes at the base of the Hill of Stars was certainly new, and an open space lush with greenery yawned under the bright lights of a slender needle tower. It was as if the WalkingStones were not satisfied with their expansion; they had to tear down and rebuild even in the center of their city.

  The valley was awash in them. The wind stunk of metal; the VoidEyes in the sky above were lost in the glare.

  Yet the WalkingStones’ ceaseless toil impressed SilverSide, even as she growled at the sight of the naked, muddy hillsides in their path.

  “They rape the land, like a male taking a female before her time,” KeenEye snarled. She growled in BeastTongue: a sound of pure loathing. “There are always more of them, always more of their stone caves, always more of their lights and noise and smells.”

  “They leave nothing for us,” LifeCrier agreed. “Is this the way the Void looks, SilverSide? Is this the way the gods live?”

  “I do not know,” SilverSide answered. “It is possible. I feel…I feel a pull to it, LifeCrier. There is something in the smoothness, in the many tools they use, in the way they move. Perhaps it is something I once knew.”

  “Then the gods can have the Void,” KeenEye said in irreverent KinSpeech. “I hate it.”

  “OldMother will eat the souls of kin as we rise to the Void,” LifeCrier chastised the former leader, using HuntTongue to emphasize his point. “She takes us to the One Pack again, and we run in the Endless Forest.”

  SilverSide snapped at the two of them. “Silence!” she ordered. LifeCrier immediately moved back into the pack; KeenEye stared at SilverSide for a moment, then dropped her muzzle. “Move forward now. Quietly. We don’t want to bring the Hunters too quickly.”