ALPHA: Normal city subroutines accessed. City functions on-line and programming reinstated.
BETA: Alert situation! Central computer destroyed. Attacking unit in shape of local wolf-creatures is rogue robot. Repeat, attacking unit is robot not under control of City Supervisors.
GAMMA: Alert update. Witnessing units report sophisticated shape-changing abilities. Compass Tower Hunter-Seekers programming altered to compensate.
SilverSide increased her pace as she moved toward the exit. The corridor was crowded now, the WalkingStones returning to their routines. If the Hunters were aware that she could change shape, then her WalkingStone guise was not going to help her for very long. Someone would report her presence or discover the charade through some inadvertent response.
She knew that her victory had been short and bittersweet. Yes, she had destroyed Central. She had disrupted the city, if only momentarily. But the city had responded to the challenge all too well. If she interpreted the signals correctly, there were now three sub-Centrals, all in different places, and they knew her one advantage. If she were going to win this battle, she must move quickly, find all three of these Supervisors, and destroy them.
The next command from the trio of Supervisors dashed any hope SilverSide had at all.
ALPHA: All city units: access subroutine 3067.A.296. Immediately report any units not responding. Hold that unit at all costs until Hunter-Seekers arrive. Third Law precedence invoked - city survival involved: higher priority than individual survival.
All around her, moving WalkingStones came to an abrupt halt. An instant later, SilverSide did the same; it seemed safest.
She was wrong. A simultaneous alert was broadcast from the worker WalkingStones around her. ANOMALY! Hunter-Seeker unit in Compass Tower has stopped. In the same instant, all the workers in sight lunged for her.
SilverSide growled as she dropped back into her preferred wolf shape. She threw the nearest worker aside, the fragile body crumpling under her blow, and dashed through the opening it gave her. The alarm followed SilverSide as she darted from the building-she plowed through a worker who tried to block the entrance to the Hill of Stars and emerged into cool night.
She howled a lament.
Then she turned into the lumbering bird shape she had used once before, a black and sorrowing form.
Clumsily, her wings beat air, and she retreated from the city into the open sky. The false stars of the city below mocked her, and she knew there would be no hiding from the Hunters now.
Chapter 20. Contact
The uproar was furious, and mixed in with it was an occasional metallic grating, as if someone were bashing a steel plate over and over with a rubber hammer. All at once, there was a yelp of terror and a wail.
“The wolf-creatures,” Derec said. “They’re the ones who have been attacking the city. They’re why we got the distress call. Look!” He held up the braided wire from the dead wolf-creature to Mandelbrot. It sparkled in the yellow-white light of the larger moon.
“The city does not know that they are sentient,” Mandelbrot said. The robot seemed to shudder once allover. “The robots think they’re just animals. They are simply exterminating them when they find them, like pests.”
“This circuit board didn’t come from the wolves originally. Sure, the city might think the wolf-creatures are just animals-after all, we did too. But they’ve obviously destroyed at least one robot already. Mandelbrot, we have to do something. Now.”
Derec laid the necklace on the dead wolf-creature’s body and took his gun in his hand, his face grim. Mandelbrot’s hand closed over his wrist, firmly. “No,” the robot said. The odd grating slur was back in its voice. “I cannot allow you to kill them, Master Derec. I am sorry.”
“Mandelbrot, you misunderstand.”
“It does not matter if the robots are destroyed. That is only the Third Law and this Robot City can easily build more. I have made the decision you asked me about earlier. To kill a wolf-creature is to break the First Law.”
“Please. You must trust me. I am not going to kill them.” Derec tried to move his hand; the robot’s grip was gentle but unyielding. “Mandelbrot, I am ordering you to release my hand. I will not kill the wolf-creatures. Do you understand that?”
Derec thought that Mandelbrot might not respond. The robot was staring at the dead wolf-creature, at the bright wire. The incident had further upset the positronic brain; Derec began to fear that Mandelbrot would freeze now, with Derec’s one good arm locked in a death grip.
It would be an ignoble and curious way to end, anchored to a dead robot.
Mandelbrot’s fingers opened slowly. Derec let out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding. “Thank you,” he said. “Mandelbrot, I’m going to need your help. I need a delicate touch and two good hands. Here-take the gun. Unload it. Quickly, we may only have a few minutes.”
The battle was still going on within the darkness under the trees. In fact, the uproar seemed to have intensified. As the robot took the darts from their chambers, Derec opened his backpack and found the medical kit. Luckily, everything there was well padded and nothing had broken in his fall. He looked through the collection of vials, squinting in the dim light, and found what he needed.
“Mandelbrot, break open the dart chambers and empty out the nervekiller. Put this in.”
“Master Derec-”
“It’s a sedative. Undiluted, and with their body weight, it should knock them out.”
Mandelbrot didn’t move. His one good eye gleamed an unblinking, insistent red. “Master Derec, these creatures are unknown. Their metabolism might be so different from yours that this kills them.”
“Or it may not work at all,” Derec pointed out. He sighed. The sound of the nearby struggle was intensifying -he hoped there was still time. He patted Mandelbrot on the shoulder-the robot looked terrible: dinged, scratched, and battered. Having pieced the robot together from several different models and after the patchwork repairs following the crash, Derec felt pleased that the robot was still operating at all. He also hoped that he looked better, but the distorted reflection of himself in the robot’s body looked just as disheveled and abused.