If there was an OldMother, as LifeCrier insisted, She said nothing to SilverSide that night.
KeenEye said nothing to the robot when she came down from the hilltop in the first light of morning.
LifeCrier was as friendly as ever, but the other kin were less eager than they had been the night before, sensing the unresolved conflict with KeenEye. Where LifeCrier came up to her eagerly, his tongue stroking her face in the greetings of kin, the rest of the wolf-creatures hung back. Though they made way for her as they would have for any higher-status kin, they said very little to her unless she spoke first.
SilverSide’s behavior didn’t help things. At full light, KeenEye ordered the meat to be dragged from the storage caves for the communal meal. The kin gathered in the largest of the caves, sitting down in a large ragged circle, the pups running in and out among the adults. Smoke-preserved flanks passed from hand to hand.
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.