by Bruce Bethke
“When,daughter. ” LifeCrier slowly roused to his feet and stretched out in an easy yawn. “When SilverSides comes again, she will lead us to all we could ever hope for. Good knives. Warm furs. More food than, than-”
WhiteTail’s eyes narrowed. “Yes? I’m listening. ”
“Well, more food than you can imagine, anyway. We won’t want for anything. ”
“ And in the meantime we’re just supposed to sit and wait patiently?”
“Don’t worry, daughter. SilverSides will lead and protect us. She promised she would. Just as she promised that she would return. ”
WhiteTail turned around in a tight, nervous circle, glared at her father, and turned around again. Whatever was left of her patience finally gave up the ghost.
“You addled old fool! For twelve days and nights now you’ve kept the hunt here in PackHome and filled their heads with stories of SilverSides! In the meantime, the bellies of the younglings growl with hunger and the pups are crying because their mothers have no milk! “
LifeCrier turned to face her; involuntarily, WhiteTail’s hackles went up and her lips drew back in a snarl, exposing double rows of needle-sharp teeth
“Father, I don’t care if SilverSides is coming back someday. Your pack is starving now! You call yourself the leader of PackHome; when will you get your head out of the sky and lead the hunt?”
LifeCrier sagged back on his haunches and let his ears fall flat. With a sudden start, WhiteTail noticed the pain and confusion in the old kin’s eyes. “My own daughter,” LifeCrier whispered. “My own daughter challenges me. ”
Seeing the pain in her father’s eyes, WhiteTail felt a sudden stab of remorse. Fighting for control over her emotions, she lowered her hackles, crouched down on her belly, and laid her head on her forepaws. “I’m sorry, Father. ” She looked up at him with big, sad, puppy-dog eyes. “I spoke without thinking. I said things I didn’t mean. “
LifeCrier stood up, trotted over, and gave her a friendly little nuzzle behind the ears, as he used to when she was just a pup. “That’s all right, WhiteTail. Every now and then the FirstBeast gets into all of us and makes us say things we didn’t mean. ” She relaxed, and gave him an apologetic lick on the muzzle. LifeCrier returned a paternal smile. “I’m sure SilverSides forgives you for your momentary lapse of faith. ”
With great effort, WhiteTail kept her hackles down.
LifeCrier gave her one more nuzzle behind the ears, and then started poking around in the sleeping furs that lay piled in one corner of the cave. “Now, where did I leave that amulet? Ah, here it is. ” LifeCrier pulled out the badge of his office-a broken circuit board suspended from a braided necklace made of robotic nerve wire-and slipped it over his head. “Well, it’s time to address the faithful. Coming, Daughter?”
At first she was going to demur, but then the germ of an idea occurred to her. Suppressing a wicked smile, she sweetly said, “Of course, Father. I’d love to be with you. ” The old kin got to his feet and trotted out of the cave with WhiteTail beside him.
The barking and yipping started the moment someone in the crowd spotted LifeCrier. A few in the crowd gave themselves up to their excitement and howled in BeastTongue. By the time the old kin had crossed to the rocky knoll that overlooked the clearing, the noise had resolved into a rhythmic chant:” Life Crier, Life-Crier, Life-Crier…. ”
WhiteTail stopped at the base of the knoll and watched her father as he climbed. At the top he paused a moment to look out upon the crowd with a broad, tail-wagging smile on his face. All eyes were on him, he knew, and he basked in the glory. Then he sat down, flattened his ears, closed his eyes, and raised his voice in a long, mournful howl of BeastTongue.
The crowd returned his benediction. The sight and sound astonished WhiteTail; over two hundred kin all packed into a clearing, sitting with their backs arched stiffly, muzzles raised in a deafening unison howl.
LifeCrier dropped his head and switched to the formal cadences of HuntTongue. “Listen!” Abruptly, the howling stopped. “Hear me, O kin! I tell of the time before time, and of a promise made to our mother’s mother’s earliest dam. ”
“Praise the OldMother!” an excitable convert near WhiteTail shouted. She looked him over quickly and found him much like the others: scruffy, underfed, possibly good-looking if he’d just groom his fur. But there was a little too much hunger in his eyes, and he sported a fresh scar on his left rear leg. Another loser, she decided, dismissing him with a sniff.
“Listen!” LifeCrier said again. “In the beginning, there was the Great Pack. They lived in the Forest of Dawn, when the world was young. Of game there was no end; of enemies, none that dared invade the dens of the kin. Each hunter had his perfect mate, each little mother her strong and obedient pups, and all the kin lived in harmony. All the days were green and cool, and all the nights were warm and sweet, for time had not yet begun and Death was a stranger to the kin. It was forever summer in the Forest of Dawn, and great were the blessings that the OldMother showered down upon the kin. ”
“Praise the OldMother!” the convert shouted again, this time getting the cue right.
LifeCrier’s face darkened, and his voice took on an ominous tone. “But though they were blessed, those first kin knew it not. Instead, they let the spirit of the FirstBeast move among them, and give them evil counsel. Then brother turned against sister, and father against child, for they all desired to lead the Great Pack. When the OldMother saw this, she was greatly displeased, and she sent her chosen one, GreyMane, to set us back on the scent of righteousness. ”
Several of the other converts had by now picked up on the rhythm of the sermon, and they shouted, “Have mercy on us, OldMother! “
LifeCrier acknowledged the response with a slight nod and resumed. “But hard were the hearts of those first kin, and blind were their eyes to truth. GreyMane’s brother was full of the spirit of the FirstBeast, and the pack stood behind him as he ripped the life from her throat. Then did the OldMother fall on the Great Pack, her hackles as tall as great trees, her fangs gleaming like the sun. With thunder and fire, she drove the kin from the Forest of Dawn and scattered them to the winds, to suffer and die in the world until their children’s children’s children had paid the price of their sins. ” LifeCrier paused for a breath.
The converts yelled their enthusiastic responses.
Slowly, lovingly, LifeCrier looked over the crowd. His ears relaxed; his expression softened. In a gentler tone of voice, he continued. “Thus has it been for a thousand generations. We are born. We suffer. We die. Our pups go hungry, our old ones fall victim to the sharpfangs, and our best and brightest hunters fight tooth and claw for the right to lead, for but a summer or two. While through the ages, the faithful have waited for the sign that we are at last forgiven. Through flood and famine, through the raging fires of autumn and the bitter frosts of winter, even when hope seemed as hard to find as a redwing’s teeth, generations of kin have lived and died in the belief that the OldMother would send the Chosen One again, and we would once again live in harmony in the Forest of Dawn.
“Some have said that the believers were fools. Some have said that we waited in vain. ” LifeCrier paused to look the crowd over one more time, an enigmatic smile playing on his lips. The only sound from the converts was a disorganized mumble.
Then the old kin puffed his chest, raised his ears, and loosed a joyous bark. “Brethren, friends, members of the Great Pack: I am here today to tell you that the wait has not been in vain. For I bring you good news; the Chosen One has been sent among us, and her name is SilverSides!”
The crowd went up in another tumult of yipping and barking. Strained shouts of “Praise the OldMother!” mingled with shouts of “Praise SilverSides!” For a moment, watching the fervor of the crowd, WhiteTail wondered if her father really had any idea of the kind of energy he’d tapped. Then she put the question out of her mind. There were enough little problems to handle without confronting the big one.
“
Listen. Listen!” In a bit, the crowd settled down again, and LifeCrier continued. “Look around you. Look at your neighbors. A year ago, this humble place, this PackHome, was a desperate and dying place. Hemmed in by other packs, we faced an invasion from the Hill of Stars. The WalkingStones were terrible enemies: Tall and swift, able to kill with a glance, they were as deadly as silent sharpfangs and twice as hard to kill. The game was driven away, and our young hunters were slain without honor. If ever there was a place that needed the OldMother, surely PackHome was it.
“Now, some have said that the OldMother has grown deaf to the cries of the kin, and her heart has long since hardened against us. But brethren, I am here to tell you that she listens to us still. For the OldMother heard the lamentations of PackHome; she saw the hungry pups, she smelled the unburied dead. The OldMother’s heart was moved, and in our darkest hour she sent us her sign and her help, and the name was SilverSides. “
LifeCrier’s voice dropped to a whisper. Remarkably, the crowd fell silent to listen. For a moment all WhiteTail heard was the wind rustling the leaves of the whitetrees and the distant call of a lonely bluecrest.
“I was there. oh my brethren,” LifeCrier whispered. “You and I, we were born from our mothers. But the mother of SilverSides is the OldMother, who lives in the sky, and SilverSides was born from a fiery star. These old eyes saw her come down from the sky, trailing flame and glory.
“She was as a cub, but she was formed fully grown. As soon as she could move, she felled a mighty sharpfang with one bite. ” LifeCrier looked around the clearing, gauging his audience’s disbelief. “With one bite, brethren. Even before she could speak, she saved an entire hunting pack. And when she could at last speak, did she challenge KeenEye for the leadership of the hunt, as was her right under the law of the FirstBeast?
“No. She said, ‘I am here to serve you. ’ “
He paused to let that thought sink in and catch his breath. After a few quick pants, he resumed speaking in his normal voice. “That is the first lesson, O members of the Great Pack. She accomplished great things; she fought with valor. But all these things she did to serve the pack.
“She hunted with the pack, and she was a mighty hunter. She led us against the WalkingStones, and drove them back in defeat. ” He leapt to his hind feet and held his amulet high. The sunlight twinkled and flashed on the broken circuit board. “This is the token she gave me, to remind me of my faith. It is a piece of the brain of a WalkingStone, and it does not decay!”
LifeCrier flashed the amulet around so all could see it. When the wondrous gasps had settled down, he hung the amulet around his neck again and dropped down to all fours. “That was just one of her miracles. There were many more, and in time I will tell you about them. But for now-for you who are taking your first trots down the path of faith-I leave you with these four promises, which she gave unto me. Let these be the four legs upon which your faith stands:
“SilverSides will protect us.
“SilverSides will serve us.
“SilverSides came once, to awaken us.
“SilverSides will come again, to lead us back to the Forest of Dawn. ”
Abruptly, LifeCrier turned and began descending from the rocky knoll. The crowd exploded in a tumult of barking and howling. Shouts of “Praise LifeCrier!” went up from one side of the clearing, and “Praise SilverSides!” from the other. A small fight started in the back when someone tried to shout “Praise the OldMother!” and the younglings in the front were swept aside by a mob of converts rushing forward to touch the fur of LifeCrier.
Unnoticed in all the noise and confusion, WhiteTail carefully worked her way around to the back side of the knoll. She paused only a moment, to think, I sure hope I know what I ’ m doing. Then in one quick dash she scampered to the top of the knoll and let rip with her best blood-curdling shriek.
Amazingly, the rabble all froze and stared at her.
Here goes nothing.WhiteTail flashed a wide, joyous, utterly fraudulent smile, whipped her tail excitedly, and barked out, “Hear me! I am WhiteTail, daughter of LifeCrier!”
“Praise LifeCrier!” the scruffy one near the front shouted.
She beamed at the crowd again. Whatever you do, girl, don ’ t make eye contact with your father. “LifeCrier has asked me to make an announcement. ” She felt the fur on the back of her head prickle and knew that her father was staring at her. She could easily visualize his baffled expression as he tried to figure out what she was up to this time, and she started to glance in his direction. Don ’ t look at him!
“In honor of this happy occasion,” WhiteTail barked, “LifeCrier wishes it known that he himself will lead the first hunt of the Great Pack! He goes to the forest now; all who would truly follow in the footsteps of SilverSides, follow LifeCrier!” The pack erupted in a maelstrom of baying and hunting howls and surged forward to engulf LifeCrier.
Now, girl.Now you can look at him. WhiteTail picked her father’s face out of the mob at the foot of the knoll. For an instant he looked back at her with daggers flashing in his eyes, and then he was swept away by the furry tide that streamed out into the forest. Okay, Father, WhiteTail thought with a snicker, let ’ s see you wriggle your way out of this one. Bounding down from the knoll, she blended into the crowd and followed.
All her efforts were concentrated on keeping track of her father. She never noticed the small, green observation robot that drifted along at treetop level, following her.
Chapter 10. Janet
Dr. Anastasi charged up the slidewalk from the tunnel transit stop, pinwheeled through a lobby, and caught the next flight of slidewalk. “Look at this, Basalom. Have you ever seen such conspicuous waste before?”
The First and Second Laws of Robotics prevented him from responding with an untruth, but Basalom deduced from experience that his mistress did not want a completely truthful answer. He kept his silence as he strode a respectful three paces behind her, but he carried on an internal dialogue. Actually, Dr. Anastasi, we ’ ve both seen something exactly like this. Or have you forgotten the C eremyons already?
Dr. Anastasi rapped her knuckles on a ceiling support beam as the slidewalk rose up through the next floor. “Good grief. Iron. Chrome steel. Petrochemical plastics. They must have torn down an entire mountain to build this place. ”
“Quite possibly, madam. ” Although in that case the scanning team would have spotted something beyond a little thermal pollution, no?
Dr. Anastasi shook her head. “When I think of all the ecological damage that these things must cause
“I mean, think of it, Basalom. Thousands of hectares of biosphere flattened, graded, and rendered utterly sterile. Entire species displaced. ” She turned around and took in the building with a sweeping gesture. “You know, I think I’ve figured it out. The Robot Cities are fire ant nests. Enormous fire ant nests. ”
The allusion was a bit obscure; it took Basalom almost 30 nanoseconds to cross-reference and make the connection. Fire ant: Solenopsis saevissinul richteri. A fiercely stinging omnivorous ant native to the American continents of Earth, commonly thought responsible for the Great Agricultural Failure of the early 21 st century. See North American History, Populist Rising of 2014.Then he realized that Janet was obviously waiting for him to ask her to explain. “Fire ants, madam?”
“Nasty little brown bugs, native to Earth. Every now and then someone accidentally exports them to a Settler world.
“All it takes is one queen, at the start. But her offspring build these huge, networked, almost indestructible nests, strip the land of everything that can be eaten, and kill or drive out all the native species right up to cattle. Pretty soon, instead of a meadow, you’ve got a couple hectares of solid fire ant nest. And then they send out hordes of flying queens to start new colonies. ”
The slidewalk rose through another floor, and Janet looked around. “Yes, fire ants get established someplace, you may as well nuke the whole mess and start over. ”
They’d reached the
top of the slidewalk. Janet wheeled and charged through an enormous open archway; Basalom followed an instant later, in time to see Dr. Anastasi get grabbed by two large, matte-black security robots.
His First Law reaction was immediate and overwhelming. Dr. Anastasi is being attacked. I must defend her.
Even as he started to move, within nanoseconds, secondary observations came into his central thought processor. The security robots were standard Robot City Avernus models: massive, solid, four meters tall, equipped with ominous-looking pincer hands-in short, far more menacing than the older “Gort” models found doing most security work on Spacer worlds. These robots are subject to the First Law just as I am. Dr. Anastasi is in no danger. Perhaps they are restraining her in order to prevent her from entering an area of greater potential harm.
Dr. Anastasi’ s face flushed red to the roots of her blond hair, and she pounded ineffectually on the robot’s broad metal chest. “Put me down!”
“This is a restricted area,” the robot said in a voice that sounded like ball bearings in a blender.
“This is Central Hall. It can’t be a restricted area. ”
The robot tilted its massive, helmet-like head back and scanned her face. “You are not in my permissions file. Access denied. If you would like to apply for permission-”
“Shut up!” She thumped the black behemoth on the side of the head, and it responded by shifting its grip so that she could no longer move her arms.
Casually, Basalom strolled into view, stopped a foot short of the security robots’ reaction perimeter, and opened a commlink channel. Hello. Is there some problem here?
This is a restricted area,the unoccupied security robot said. Interestingly, its commlink signal projected the same gravelly tone as the other’s voice synthesizer.
Ah, I see.He looked at Dr. Anastasi as if curious. What did,she do?