The three robots had reached them as Derec rose, slapping dirt from his pants. Derec tried to contact them via the chemfet link, but there was still nothing there but silence. “You’re from the Robot City?” he asked them.
“Yes.”
“Who is in charge there? Are there other humans? Is Avery there?”
“There are no other humans. The central computer directs all city activities.”
Derec could feel his shoulders relaxing with their words, and he realized just how tense he’d been at the thought of another confrontation with his father and his twisted genius. He let out a deep sigh. “Then inform the central computer that you have found a human and will be returning with him and another robot to the city,” he said. “Tell Central that we’ve come in response to its distress call, and that we have information for it regarding these wolf-creatures. Tell it also to open a channel to respond to Mandelbrot, the robot with me; I will communicate with the central computer through him.”
The robots went silent for a moment, then one of them spoke again. “I am sorry, Master, but the central computer is not responding.”
“Mandelbrot?”
“They are correct, Master Derec. There is silence on all…just a moment.” Derec saw the other robots stiffen as if listening to something only they could hear; his own chemfet link seemed to be utterly dead. He could no longer hear the central computer at all.
“Master Derec,” Mandelbrot said, “the situation in Robot City has changed radically. The central computer has just been destroyed by a rogue robot. The city is now under control of three Supervisor units. I have contacted them and informed them of your arrival and the situation here. They ask that we come to Robot City as quickly as possible for consultation. The robots here will guide us, and the Supervisors will send out more robots in our direction to escort us in case the rogue attacks us. It seems very violent.”
Derec was puzzled. “Surely they don’t think the rogue would attack a human, Mandelbrot? And how did the city ever lose control of it?”
“That is the odd thing, Master Derec,” Mandelbrot answered. “It is not a city robot at all. It is not even humanoid.”
Mandelbrot pointed to the drugged wolf-creature.
“It looks like one of these,” the robot said.
The dark bird glided over the forest, silent except for the rushing of the wind past its widespread wings. Circling the glade once and seeing nothing, it banked sharply and descended, clipping the treetops and landing clumsily on the top of the hillside overlooking the clearing.
There, under the watching moons, it changed shape and became SilverSide once more.
The Hunters were still buried below. She noted that first of all because it was most important to her positronic mind-First Law. Three WalkingStones lay here as well, and that was also good.
But the dark shapes on the ground near the WalkingStones were kin. SilverSide howled a lament to the stars and then called for any of the other kin-there was no answer. She shifted her vision into the infrared and immediately saw warmth radiating from the ground nearby: two of the kin, and the shape of one was very familiar. SilverSide let out a glad BeastTalk cry and went to him.
LifeCrier was moving, at least. The old one had lifted himself up on his front legs and was trying to walk, though his rear legs dragged limply behind as if paralyzed. “SilverSide,” LifeCrier barked in happy KinSpeech. “You’ve returned. Did you kill Central?”
“I destroyed it, but it did no good,” SilverSide replied flatly. “What happened here? Are the others dead?”
“I don’t think so.” LifeCrier sank down again, exhausted, but his voice held a rich excitement. “SilverSide, there was a VoidBeing here. It had a companion, another WalkingStone unlike any of the ones around the Hill of Stars.”
“A VoidBeing? From the OldMother?” LifeCrier’s words stirred odd resonances deep in SilverSide’s mind.
“Not from the OldMother. No, not with that shape. From another of the gods, perhaps. The VoidBeing carried a stick that threw small knives at the kin, and a magic in the knives took away our bodies while leaving our spirits inside. I attacked it because it had the look of the WalkingStones, and I knew it couldn’t be from the OldMother. But before I reached it, r could no longer move. I could only watch as it came to me and touched me. I thought it would kill me then, but it didn’t. It stroked me like a mother stroking her pup and talked to me in the VoidTongue even though it seemed to know I could not understand it. Then it laid me back down. It left a short time later with the WalkingStones from the city.”
Delicate balances were shifting inside SilverSide. Core programming in her positronic mind gave her a feeling akin to yearning. She could hear the echo of the first voice she’d ever heard, talking to her in the VoidTongue in the darkness of the Egg. A human being is an intelligent lifeform. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings.
But this VoidBeing is not of this world,she reminded herself, not alive as we are. It is a MadeThing of the gods, or one of the gods themselves. So it cannot be human. The kin are human.
The feeling receded, but only slightly. There was in her a pull toward intelligence. “I must go find this VoidBeing,” she said to LifeCrier.
“It’s gone back to the Hill of Stars,” the old kin told her. “The WalkingStones went with it.”
LifeCrier struggled to rise again and this time succeeded in standing on wobbly legs. The other kin were beginning to stir as well, easing SilverSide’s First Law concerns.
Until she noticed that there was one less of the kin than there should have been. “Where is KeenEye?” she asked.
LifeCrier’s grizzled forehead wrinkled. “I don’t know,” he answered. “We’d separated the kin to better fight the WalkingStones, and she was to have attacked from over there.” LifeCrier pointed into the woods behind them. “I never saw her.” The others were coming up to them shakily, and LifeCrier asked all of them: “Did any of you see KeenEye during the fight?”
All the kin shook their heads.
SilverSide looked at the ground and the tracks left by the VoidBeing. It was an extremely clumsy creature; it had left a path through the trees that was as easy to follow as one of the WalkingStone’s straight stone paths. An uneasy suspicion came to SilverSide. “Follow me,” she said.
She ran into the cover of trees, LifeCrier and the others following slowly behind.