SilverSide continued on until she reached the large open plaza in which the Hill of Stars stood.
The gigantic pyramidal structure overshadowed any of the other buildings in the city, towering higher than the hills surrounding the valley. Its steep, sloping faces were pocked with windows behind which she could occasionally see one the WalkingStones moving. The scale of the structure was something she could only now begin to understand. It was immense, far larger than anything else in this place. A fitting place for the Central, for this queen WalkingStone, she decided. There were large doors cut into each of the sides. SilverSide began walking across the plaza toward the nearest of them.
She expected to be stopped and challenged. She had prepared herself to be ready to move quickly and violently, knowing that once an alarm was raised, Central would immediately take steps to protect itself, and she would have scant minutes to finish her task.
It was almost too easy. None of the WalkingStones in the plaza made any move to prevent her from entering the Hill of Stars. Like the rest, they paid no attention to her at all. She was simply another one of the workers, going silently about her task without question-why should another of them question her right to be there? She entered into a cold dimness bounded by stone and cut with wide hallways.
There were fewer of the WalkingStones here, and most of them had a different body construction: more streamlined, with hands obviously designed for delicate work. From the orders given them by Central, SilverSide knew that these were the attendants of Central, the ones allowed into its presence. SilverSide let her body change to match their shape in a brief moment when she was alone in the hall and then continued walking, waiting.
It took only a few minutes. An order came from Central to one of the attendants who had just passed SilverSide, summoning it. The WalkingStone turned to obey, and SilverSide followed, moving with the WalkingStone along the labyrinthian corridors deeper into the heart of the Hill of Stars. In time, they passed through a set of wide doorways into a vast interior chamber.
And SilverSide looked upon Central.
The huge chamber was brightly lit from hanging lamps. Four doors entered into it on the ground level; balconies rimmed the walls to the ceiling, twenty or more stories high. In all that vast space, WalkingStones moved on all sides, but the ground floor was left mostly empty but for a cluster in the exact middle. There stood a quartet of Hunters, one at each corner of an array of eight wafer-thin, two-meter-tall rectangles, arranged like the rays of a stylized sun around a central column. The column was all black and chrome, with tiny lights blinking red and amber up and down its length. The presence of the Hunters would have been enough, but SilverSide could sense the power and energy coming from the structures.
Central. The Queen. The mind behind the WalkingStones.
And with the Hunters guarding it, SilverSide knew that a frontal attack would not work. She altered her course in what she hoped looked to be a purposeful way, angling toward another of the exits from the room. One of the Hunters watched her, but she heard nothing in her head from Central. SilverSide left the room and went into the hallway beyond.
Had she been kin, she might have felt despair. Isolated as it was, with the Hunters around it, there seemed to be no way to reach Central. It would be a long run across that floor; before she could hope to reach the unit, she would be cut down by the Hunters’ laser fire. As for the balconies…
She passed a glassed-in elevator rising toward the top of the Hill of Stars, climbing the outside of Central’s chamber. The glimmer of an idea sparked in her positronic brain.
SilverSide stepped into the open door of one of the elevators as another of the WalkingStones stepped off. A row of marked buttons was set next to the door; she pressed one and the elevator rose swiftly up, stopping gently with a chime. SilverSide stepped out and found the nearest door leading into the central chamber. She stepped to the railing and looked down.
Far, far below in that dizzying space, she could see the sunray design of Central.
Any Third Law requirement that she protect her own life was lost in the First Law possibilities represented by the death of Central. The fact that she might die in the effort meant nothing weighed against the fact that it would save the lives of kin. SilverSide climbed up on the railing, her body changing back to wolf shape. Her powerful hind legs gathered.
She leapt.
Her robotic strength took her out over the well of emptiness. At the zenith of her leap, over the center of the space, she willed herself to change once more, letting the body expand and thin and flatten into a glider shape like the paraseeds she’d seen fall from the trees near PackHome. She sailed, soaring and spiraling down-a silent enemy descending.
For several seconds, she heard nothing. SilverSide began to think that this would work, that she would plummet unhindered down to Central.
But a worker pointed as she passed one of the balconies in her descent. SilverSide realized that there were certain things too out of the ordinary for even the workers to ignore.
Central! Alert!
The Hunters looked up and saw SilverSide.
One of the younglings heard them first. “KeenEye,” he hissed. “WalkingStones!”
KeenEye growled in BeastTalk. Since SilverSide had left, she had been prowling the ground where the Hunters were buried, nervous and agitated. She’d been expecting this. She’d known that this was a foolhardy idea from the beginning. But SilverSide was the leader-there was nothing she could do about that short of challenging her again, and SilverSide was simply too strong. KeenEye gave LifeCrier a baleful, accusing glance and bounded toward the youngling.
“Go see where they are,” she ordered the young male. “Quickly!”
“SilverSide hasn’t had time yet to destroy Central,” LifeCrier said, coming up behind KeenEye as she watched the youngling rush away. “Only a few more minutes-”
“Or perhaps she’s already been killed and this is a squad of Hunters who will kill the rest of us.”
“SilverSide is the OldMother’s-”
“Be quiet!” KeenEye growled in savage HuntTongue. “I am tired of hearing this prattling about OldMother and the Void. SilverSide has made a mistake, whether she is from the OldMother or not.”