“I…do not…know…”
Derec saw that the robot’s resolve was visibly weakening. He pressed his argument. “The rogue could have killed me in an instant, Mandelbrot. It chose not to. That tells me that the Three Laws are still functioning. And we’re not going to resolve anything here unless we confront it. If we just order the city to build us a ship and leave-assuming the city’s even capable of such a task at this point, and I seriously doubt that-then we’ve abandoned these wolf-creatures. They’re going to continue to try to attack the city, and once we’re gone, who knows what will happen? They may well die. We’ve certainly disrupted their society already, and if the city continues to grow, it will contact other packs as well. They’re sentient beings, Mandelbrot. You know it yourself. I can’t and won’t just leave them, and just sitting here is useless.”
As he spoke, Derec realized that he was also talking to himself. He had just been sitting there, moping about Ariel and Wolruf and doing nothing. It was time to confront the rogue, one way or the other. He had to face the challenge.
“Mandelbrot, I’m ordering you again to move.”
The robot took a hesitant step aside. “I would like…to accompany you.”
Derec smiled. “Of course. You always need a second in a duel.” Then, before Mandelbrot could say anything else: “Just kidding, of course.”
Chapter 26. A Challenge Met
SilverSide watched the city as she’d watched it every night since SmallFace was a crescent horn. The moon was entirely gone now, waiting for the OldMother to birth it once more in its endless cycle. Still the GodBeing ignored her. But SilverSide came every night and renewed her challenge.
The GodBeing would come to her. It must.
At least some of what it said had been true. The city had changed; it no longer pursued the kin when they attacked. Only a few nights past, LifeCrier had led the pack down to kill. Though the Hunters had come to protect the worker WalkingStones, they had not followed the pack when the kin retreated.
Then the youngling SlowPaw had been caught straggling as usual, and one of the Hunters had shot him. SilverSide had been certain that SlowPaw was dead. But the Hunters came after the body, and after SilverSide disabled them, she found that they had only made SlowPaw sleep. She had been certain that the Hunters would follow her for revenge and had been ready to lead them away from PackHome again.
But the rest of the Hunters remained in the city. The GodBeing-whose name was Derec, as she knew from listening to the city’s VoidTongue-had ordered it so.
What kind of creature would stay hidden in its cave for so long? How could it hunt there, when all the game had been driven elsewhere? The GodBeing was flesh like the kin; it must eat.
Which meant that it would come out.
Most strangely of all, SilverSide could feel the urge in her to meet this GodBeing again. The remembrance of it stirred odd thoughts in her mind. She felt a pull, a yearning.
It has knowledge. It is intelligent. It is a toolmaker far superior to any of the kin. I have heard the city say that the one WalkingStone was built by this Derec.
There were moments when she did not want to fight it at all. But the challenge was demanded by the OldMother’s commands inside her. Above all else, she could let no harm come to the kin, and the city harmed kin simply by its existence. She must control the city as she controlled the kin, and the GodBeing prevented that.
That meant it must be challenged. If it refused her that privilege, it must die.
The edge of the city was well defined, like the boundaries of a cooled lava flow. Derec stepped from a hard level walkway and with the next step, he was on grass. Outside.
He suddenly, foolishly, felt unprotected.
That ’ s silly,he told himself. Mandelbrot ’ s alongside you, and Alpha ’ s monitoring the whole thing through Witness robots. There are a half-dozen Hunters waiting back in the city; they ’ II get to you in seconds if anything happens. You ’ re as safe as you can be. Besides, you ’ re the one who insisted that the Three Laws protected you from the rogue.
He suddenly didn’t feel very confident at all.
A low rumbling came from his right. Derec turned.
The rogue was there.
It crouched fifty meters up slope where a stand of trees had been cleared by workers from the city. Perched atop one of the fallen logs and in wolf shape, the rogue looked bigger than Derec had remembered. Its claws were displayed, its mouth slightly open to reveal the metal teeth set there. It reared up on its back legs as Derec turned to it, standing perhaps a half-meter taller than Derec himself. Mandelbrot had come alongside Derec without prompting, the implicit threat in the rogue’s pose forcing the robot to stay close enough to intervene.
It ’ s a robot. It follows the Laws.Derec took a deep breath, motioning Mandelbrot back. “I’ve come to talk with you,” he said to the rogue.
It growled, then spat out in Standard: “I have challenged you already. I did not come to talk.”
“At least tell me your name.”
“I am called SilverSide,” the rogue answered, and Derec could have sworn there was a hint of bravado in its voice, far more inflection than any robot he had ever heard before. Whoever had programmed it had been good. “I am the Chosen of the OldMother, the Bane of WalkingStones. Tell your WalkingStone to leave so that we may decide who is the leader.”
Derec looked at Mandelbrot, who had taken yet another step closer at the rogue’s words. “Mandelbrot is compelled to protect me, SilverSide. Tell him that you’re not going to hurt me, and I can send him back.”
“It is no protection to you at all,” SilverSide answered, and her pale eyes glanced at Mandelbrot. “I have already defeated it once. I will do it again, and then you and I will settle this.”
“No, I order you-” Derec began, but it was already too late.