by Isaac Asimov
“This is a poor place to talk,” said Hunter. “May we find a spot that is more comfortable?”
Vicinius had glanced at Steve when he had shifted the leather bag, so the question about the presence of gifts was answered. Steve now realized that Hunter was angling for an invitation back to the home village of these hunters. Holding the bag uncertainly, he said nothing.
Vicinius seemed to understand Hunter’s meaning, as well. He looked over the group again, appraising them. His companions waited for him to speak.
“Hunter,” Gene said quietly, switching to English so the Germans could not understand. “I suggest some warrior-bonding. Compliment his weapons and his skill at arms. If he offers you a chance to show off, do well but don’t embarrass him. And try speaking German to him.”
“You have fine spears,” said Hunter politely in German. “Your companions are all very fit.”
“You speak our language.” Vicinius smiled for the first time, looking Hunter in the eye again, and some of his companions murmured among themselves in surprise.
“We all speak it to some degree,” said Hunter. “Vicinius, we have heard that the men of the Cherusci tribe are great hunters and warriors. As traders, we are impressed by this reputation. Would one of your party be so kind as to demonstrate this skill with weapons?”
Vicinius grinned in appreciation of this compliment, and so did some of his companions. He turned and looked around among the trees for a moment. Then he hefted his spear, reared back, and heaved it through the air.
The big spear flew among the leafy branches, somehow missing all of them, and struck a tree trunk about thirty-five yards away with a loud thunk.
Hunter estimated the weight of the spear from its appearance and the sound it had made striking the tree. The distance and the size of the target alone were not particularly impressive, but he could see that in this throw, Vicinius’s challenge had been to throw the spear through the dense forest without hitting the many tree branches and underbrush that would have deflected the weapon from its target. He had accomplished the maneuver perfectly.
“Will you throw?” Vicinius gestured for one of his companions to offer a spear to Hunter.
Hunter accepted the spear. He wanted to make a good impression on these hunters and warriors but he remembered Gene’s warning not to embarrass their host. Hunter carefully raised the spear and threw it at the same tree.
Hunter’s spear also flew straight, missing all the surrounding branches, and struck the same tree trunk. However, it hit just below the first spear. The other warriors nodded their appreciation of his throw but said nothing.
Vicinius, however, laughed aloud. “Excellent! You must be a fine hunter.”
“I have come to trade, not to hunt,” said Hunter, in what he hoped was a modest tone of voice.
“And your friends?”
“Traders as well.”
Vicinius nodded, looking them over again. He pointed to another of the warriors. That man also took a broad stance and cast his spear. It, too, sailed among the dense leaves and branches to strike a different tree trunk. He turned and grinned at Vicinius and Hunter.
“Very impressive,” said Hunter.
Vicinius pointed to another warrior, then nodded toward Gene. The other man tossed his spear vertically to the surprised historian.
Steve stifled a laugh. “Good luck, Gene.”
“I’ll need it,” said Gene, grinning. He moved up next to Hunter, where he had more open space, and carefully gripped the spear. “Well, I don’t know about this.”
“You can do it,” said Jane.
“I wonder.” Gene took a deep breath and imitated the stance he had seen the warriors take. Then he clenched his teeth and threw the spear.
It flew forward but, halfway to its target, the shaft of the spear grazed an overhanging branch and glanced off to the left. It fell out of sight in the underbrush.
All the Germans laughed. So did Steve. Gene shrugged, still smiling.
This time a warrior stepped up without bidding from Vicinius. He threw his spear as well, striking another tree near the first two that had spears hanging from them. The other warriors, now much more relaxed than they had been at first, cheered good-naturedly.
Another warrior tossed his spear to Steve, who caught it with his free hand.
“Uh-oh,” said Steve, grinning as he set down the leather bag between his feet.
“You can’t do much worse than I did,” said Gene. “Go ahead. We’re only traders, after all.”
“Hey, I’m only a slave.” Steve reared back like the others and threw the spear. It, too, clattered against some tree branches halfway to its target and fell out of sight. The warriors laughed, as did Jane and Gene.
Several of the warriors ran to fetch the spears.
“Don’t I get a throw?” Jane asked, looking around at the other warriors.
“I’m afraid not,” said Gene. “It’s a cultural matter with them.”
“Well, I probably wouldn’t do any better than you two, anyway,” said Jane.
“Those things are heavier than they look,” said Steve. “I didn’t know it was so hard.” He picked up the leather bag again.
“You three have spirit,” said Vicinius.
‘We have more spirit than skill,” said Hunter. “However, I thank you for the game.”
“It is well,” said Vicinius. “You said you were traders from Gaul?”
“That is right.”
“In what do you trade?”
“Silverwork.”
“Silver, eh?” Vicinius glanced at the leather bag. Then he looked at Hunter’s face for a long moment. “Please come to our village. It is not far. You will be my guests.”
“Thank you.” Hunter knew that bringing strangers back to the village was an important decision. Vicinius might also be more cautious than usual because of the tension between the Romans and Germans now. However, the reason for his hesitation did not really matter.
Some of the other German warriors had already gone to fetch the spears. Then Vicinius waved once and turned to lead the way through the forest.
Hunter followed him, remaining back a short distance to stay with his team. They were much slower than the Germans. As they picked their way through the forest, Steve was the most surefooted.
“Hunter,” Jane said quietly in English. “Something has occurred to me about the component robots.”
He waited for her to come up next to him. Then they walked together. “What is it?”
“I simply can’t believe that they have chosen when and where to go in the past purely by chance.”
“You feel they have specific motives behind their choices?” Hunter asked.
“They must,” said Jane. “Random flight would have taken them to many parts of the world, far from the centers of historical focus.”.
“Why did MC 1 choose to go to what would become Alberta in the Late Cretaceous?”
“I have no way of knowing about that,” said Jane. “But Sir Henry Morgan was a historical figure, even though a minor one. And MC 3’s flight to the border of the Roman Empire just can’t be an accident.”
“Why do you feel this way?”
“In both Morgan’s time and especially now, most of the world was not well documented historically. The vast majority of land area is outside historical record. And most of the land within historical record does not have anything very significant occurring at any given time. For some reason, MC 2 and 3 chose to be in the area of recorded human history, even while intending to remain microscopic.”
“They represent only two of the six component robots,” said Hunter.
“I thought of that. As a roboticist, I was intrigued by this mystery, so before breakfast this morning, I got on the city computer. I found out that when MC Governor did certain tasks with the city, he sometimes delegated them to his component personalities.”
Hunter turned to her in surprise, holding a pine branch out of the way for her. “How did y
ou learn that?”
“I asked for any information that might help identify the component robots’ separate abilities, tendencies, or personalities.” She took the branch from Hunter and in turn held it for Gene.
“I see,” said Hunter. “I was focused on MC Governor as an integral individual first, who split up. I did not think to approach the component robots as individuals while MC Governor was still functioning.”
“I found out that MC 1 specialized in the environmental impact of Mojave Center on the surrounding area,” said Jane. “MC 2 specialized in general troubleshooting for MC Governor. MC 3 handled security concerns for Mojave Center. I’m sure these match up in some way with the places they chose to go.” She stepped over a large, fallen tree trunk and caught her cloak on a short branch.
“What about the other three component robots?” Hunter stopped to pull her cloak free.
“I don’t recall. I left my notes with my regular clothes back in Room F-12.”
“You believe that these specialties reflect their choices of where and in what time period to hide?”
“Yes, even though they intended to remain microscopic forever. It may be a subliminal influence of their specialties, rather than part of their deliberate, rational thought. But if I can figure out what kind of influence MC 3’s specialty, for instance, had on him, I might have a shortcut for finding him here.”
“You say that MC 3 handled security matters for Mojave Center,” Hunter said. “This strikes me as irrelevant to his presence here. Do you have any guess as to where he might be now, or where he would go here, with this information?”
“No,” Jane said. “Not yet.”
The Germans quietly led the way through the forest. Hunter saw that they were still carefully watching the birds in the trees and stopping occasionally simply to listen. The dogs, too, were on the alert. He decided that they were still hoping to find prey for dinner, even on their way home.
Dr. Wayne Nystrom squatted next to a cold, fast-flowing stream in the forest. He drank some water out of his cupped hand and wiped his hand on a patch of grass. Then he shivered in the chilly breeze and looked around at the trees. A few birds chirped and twittered in the branches. Otherwise, the forest looked the same in every direction.
“I’m freezing,” he muttered to himself. He stood up and slowly turned around again, hoping to see a sign of human life somewhere. The view, however, was the same now that he was standing as it had been when he was squatting.
Wayne had been lost ever since his arrival here. All he knew about his location was that he was some-where in the German forest east of the Rhine in A.D. 9. He had no idea where to find human habitation.
Only a few hours ago by his own time, but seventeen centuries in the future from this year, he had taken some time to tinker with his belt unit. This was the device that he carried to trigger the time travel sphere back in Room F-12 of the Bohung Institute. In working with it, he had learned that it could control the settings in the console of the sphere even when he was in another time. This occurred during the early stage of its function, just before the sphere picked him up to move him through time. Instantly, he had realized that he could use this capability to his own advantage.
First he had used the unit’s controls to slow down the action of the device. This had allowed him enough time to monitor and read all the records inside the console that ran the sphere. Since these records contained each setting that had been used so far, they told him where all the other component robots had gone. At the time Wayne read them, Hunter and his team had not used the sphere since going to Jamaica in 1668.
Based on when each of the component robots had left its own time, Wayne had judged that of the remaining component robots still at large, the one here in Germany was due to explode the soonest. Guessing that Hunter would try to capture him next, Wayne had also picked this location. If at all possible, he wanted to grab MC 3 and study him here in this time, before Hunter could take him back.
He had arrived safely, but moving directly from Jamaica in the summer of 1668 left him unprepared for life in this forested mountain area in central Europe. The water in the stream was clear and certainly untouched by industrial pollution, but finding food in this northern forest was going to require more work than buying tropical fruit in Port Royal, Jamaica. Worst of all, without heavier clothing, he might not survive the night. He was not sure how cold these mountains would get at night.
Rubbing his arms, he stood up and looked around. All he could do was start walking. He chose a direction at random and began to pick his way through the underbrush.
“Somewhere across the Rhine in A.D. 9,” he said quietly. In the solitude, he liked hearing the sound of his own voice. However, he was not a historian and did not know much about what would be happening nearby. He only knew that he was in Germany in Roman times.
He had smelled the faint odor of woodsmoke for several minutes before he suddenly realized what it meant. In these times, of course, open fires were the principal means for cooking and keeping warm — though in a forest, the odor of smoke could also mean a forest fire. However, this smoke was too faint to present an immediate danger. Encouraged, he followed the scent.
4
AS THE TEAM followed Vicinius and his warriors up the forested slope, Steve and Gene fell into step behind Hunter and Jane. They took turns holding branches back for each other and pointing out the best way to climb over fallen logs or large, exposed tree roots. Their cloaks repeatedly snagged on twigs and had to be freed.
On the team’s first mission, their paleontologist had taken a haughty, condescending attitude toward Steve. During the second mission, their historian had run off with a local pirate. Steve knew that it was unfair to blame Gene for what the others had done, but he could not help being circumspect toward him.
Soon Vicinius had led everyone to a narrow trail, where the walking was much easier. Nearly an hour passed on the trail before Steve heard small children shouting and dogs barking. By then, he could also smell smoke from the village fires. The sun was low, behind the trees to the west.
“Vicinius,” said Hunter, as the village came into view ahead. “Is this the village of your Prince Arminius?”
“No, Hunter.” Vicinius shook his head. “Arminius lives in another village not far from here.”
The village was nestled into a small clearing. From the tree stumps, Steve could tell that the tribe had used the trees they had cut down to build rough huts, which were jammed together in a crude circle. Children came running to welcome home the warriors, and in the center of the village circle, women tended cookfires. He was surprised to see that there were only a few horses, hobbled just outside the village.
“First we shall eat,” said Vicinius. “You will be guests at my mother’s fire.”
“We thank you,” said Hunter.
Around them, everyone was turning to look at the strangers. The children came running up to them, while the village elders walked forward slowly, studying them. Vicinius waited for only one older man to come forward. He was a stocky man, slightly short er than Vicinius, but white-haired and bent forward with age.
“Father, these are traders in silver from Gaul,” said Vicinius. “This one is called Hunter.”
“Welcome,” said the old man. “I am Odover, the village chief.”
“We are pleased to meet you,” said Hunter.
Steve suddenly realized that the children, all of them either blond or red-haired, were staring at him. Some were making jokes to each other and laughing; others were just watching him. Odover, too, had just noticed him.
“Who is your companion?” Odover asked Hunter. “His name is Steve,” said Hunter. “He comes from a far land beyond the Parthian Empire to the east.”
“You are welcome,” Odover said to Steve. Then he turned and waved for the other villagers to make way for them. They backed away at his bidding.
Steve felt a little self-conscious under the stares of the villagers, but none of th
em actually approached him. Odover and Vicinius took their guests to the cookfire in front of one specific hut and gestured for them to sit down around it. They did not introduce the elderly woman tending the fire or the two younger women stirring an iron pot of stew that was boiling over it. The women looked up at the strangers curiously but did not speak.
Looking around, he counted twelve huts. They were made of narrow, vertical logs lashed together. Cracks between them had been filled with mud and straw. Around the huts, a narrow perimeter of land had been cleared of trees. In parts of the perimeter, green crops that he could not identify grew in rows.
The stew smelled good to Steve. It obviously had meat and vegetables in it, but he had no idea what kind. He waited to see what would happen next.
“First we shall eat,” said Odover. “Then we shall talk.” He waved to a young boy, who ducked into the hut. A moment later, the boy came out with a large, earthenware jug cradled in both arms. He gave it to Odover, who passed it to Vicinius.
Vicinius pulled a wooden plug from the jug with his teeth and drank from it first.
Steve was surprised. He was accustomed to guests receiving the first offer of food and drink. Next to him, Jane glanced at Gene in puzzlement.
“To prove it’s safe,” Gene whispered in English. “When strangers meet in this time, it’s a courtesy to share the same container and for the host to eat or drink first to show that nothing has been poisoned.”
“Our mead is a humble drink,” said Vicinius, giving the jug to Hunter. “Arminius has some good Roman wine from Gaul, but this is all we have in this village.”
Hunter accepted the jug and drank from it. “Thank you. It is quite good.” He passed it to Steve.
Steve took a slight drink. He found the mead had a heavy flavor and was stronger than he had expected. Swallowing hard, he gave it in turn to Jane.
Steve suddenly realized that as Jane took a drink from the jug, both Vicinius and Odover were blinking at her in surprise. The women at the fire also turned to look. None of them spoke, however, and she merely passed the jug to Gene.