“You have instructed them so yourself, Master Derec. If there were direct danger to you from one of them, I believe we would protect you first, as you most fit our programmed definition of ‘human,’ but otherwise, yes. We will not harm them.”
“I can’t stress that enough. The city can always build more robots. I don’t care how many robots these wolf-creatures might destroy-I don’t want them hurt. We can find some other way to coexist with them.”
“That is understood, Master Derec. Mandelbrot has explained much to help us reinforce your orders.”
Derec could feel adrenaline building inside him. He wanted to run back into the room and out to the edge of the city. He wanted to be there. He’d made plans to do so, but the idea had distressed Alpha, the supervisor to whom he’d first broached the subject. “That would be extremely dangerous,” the robot had said, very slowly and carefully. “I do not know that the Laws would permit it…The rogue robot…”
Derec could have argued; it hadn’t seemed worth the trouble. Even Mandelbrot had agreed: the rogue was an unknown and obviously dangerous. Despite Derec’s assurances that even a rogue would follow the Three Laws and thus be unable to harm him, all the robots had been noticeably “pleased” when he agreed to remain in the city. Okay. He’d play general this time, staying behind the lines and directing his forces. He noticed that the supervisors had also placed a cordon of Hunter-Seekers around his building, but he didn’t comment on it.
“Give me the visual, Gamma. And make sure we’re recording-we’re going to need every scrap of sound these creatures make to start deciphering the language.”
The wall of the building directly across from them was a milky white, translucent plastic. Now it glowed with inner light, and a huge image of the forest gleamed there, red with enhanced infrared imaging. Derec could easily see the wolf-creatures moving cautiously through the tall grass toward the city.
“Mandelbrot,” he said, leaning forward slightly and pointing to the wolf in the front of the pack. “Isn’t that the old one from the glade? See-it has the same gray fur around the muzzle, the same markings.”
“I see him, Master Derec.”
“He might be the best one to capture. He might remember that we didn’t harm him last time. He might even cooperate. Gamma?”
“I have already so instructed all units, Master Derec.”
“Good. I imagine we’ll have to put most of them to sleep before they’ll give up this attack. They seemed rather aggressive.” Derec patted his arm and the bandages swaddling the claw wounds. He watched them moving slowly toward the city. “They’re magnificent creatures in their own right,” he said. “Look at them. So strong and sleek; we saw what they could do to a robot.”
He could see now that several of them were wearing bright wire collars: totems against the city, perhaps, or simply trophies of past victories. The sight made him nod. “Mandelbrot, you were absolutely right. They are human. Maybe if Wolruf were here…”
As the pack approached, Derec sent messages through the chemfets. Several Hunter-Seekers advanced from the outbuildings of the city in a line. Half of them carried neural disruptors hastily built during the previous day: the computer models of the wolf-creatures indicated that the disruptors would interfere with the electrical impulses of the wolf-creatures’ brains and cause mental confusion. The jury-rigged models had also been prone to leakage and had disabled more than one of the robots as well. As a backup, other Hunter-Seekers loaded with sedative darts also moved toward the invaders. Worker units waited to capture one or more of the creatures in hopes of learning to communicate with them.
Derec didn’t think they’d go quietly. He fully expected a bitter battle before the wolf-creatures would be overcome.
He was wrong.
Halfway down the hill, the old one simply stopped. In full view, making no effort to hide himself, he rose up on his hind legs, pointed to the Hunter-Seekers, and howled in that eerie language. The gesticulation needed no translation-it was obvious enough: Come and get me.
There were evidently certain universals when it came to body language.
“That doesn’t make any sense at all.” Derec squinted at the meters-tall image of the wolf. “You’d think a pack animal would just attack. “
“They are not just animals,” Mandelbrot reminded Derec.
“Yeah. And I’ll bet the rogue’s taught them a few sneaky tricks of its own.” He grimaced. “Well, he’s obviously not going to come to us. Obviously they want the fight to come to them. Gamma, let’s send the Hunter-Seekers forward.”
But it was not a fight they wanted. Not at all. As the Hunter-Seekers advanced, the wolf-creatures retreated. Step by grudging step. They stayed out of range of the disruptors and the darts, though Derec suspected that was accident rather than anything else.
Derec tried direct communication through the Hunter-Seekers, hoping they might understand the tone of his voice if not the words. They simply howled back at it.
He sent an unarmed worker forward, arms outstretched peacefully. When it reached the pack, they tore it apart.
At last, frustrated, he sent the Hunter-Seekers forward at a quick trot. The wolf-creatures melted back into the woods, and Derec called the Hunter-Seekers back.
As a confrontation, it was an elusive, aggravating thing. As an effort to solve the conflict, it was an utter failure.
“Frost,” Derec muttered as the wall across the street went dark again and the city lights reasserted themselves. “Now just what in space was that intended to prove?”
SilverSide listened to the chorus of head-voices, waiting. She was just to the south of the city, having circled halfway around it from PackHome.
Already she could hear the alarm spreading as LifeCrier showed himself and the other kin at the edge of the forest to the west, and she could hear the new voice that directed the city functions, instructing even the triumvirate of Supervisors.
The GodBeing. The one of flesh, not stone.
The city was stupid. The WalkingStones had not learned. They expected the kin to attack the same way they always had, as if they could not create new tactics. She could hear the GodBeing telling the Hunters to move forward, speaking to them in the VoidTongue they both shared. Do not kill them, it said. Capture the old one.
SilverSide growled at that, pleased that she had cautioned LifeCrier only to show himself and to avoid an actual fight if he could. It was a First Law decision; SilverSide only knew that it felt right to her.