The rogue moved faster than Derec thought possible. If Mandelbrot had not been there, Derec would not have had a chance. Derec felt a wind as Mandelbrot shot by him and met SilverSide.
The rogue collided with the onrushing Mandelbrot in a thunderous, resounding crash. There was a blur of violent motion, and Mandelbrot was suddenly down in the dirt, his legs thrashing helplessly from a severed cable held in the rogue’s claws. The rogue itself had a long scratch in its flank but otherwise seemed unharmed.
Derec opened his mouth to shout, to protest, to scream. The chemfets told him that the Hunter-Seekers were coming, but they would be too late.
Much too late.
SilverSide growled terribly, flung the cable away, and was on him. He tried to raise his hands, hopelessly. Claws raked Derec’s sides as she grappled him and bore him down. “No!” he screamed. “You can’t hurt me! I’m a human-”
The rogue wailed.
“I’m a human-” the GodBeing Derec cried. The word set off a bewildering spark of reactions in SilverSide’s mind. Human! The resonance from that VoidTongue word was stunning, and SilverSide reeled from its effects.
A human being is an intelligent life form.
Intelligence. Human.
“You are not human,” SilverSide roared in denial, but she spoke in HuntTongue-the language of “humans”-and no answer came to her. Taking advantage of SilverSide’s confusion, the GodBeing had rolled to its feet, and now she struck at it once more, intending to slash it open with her claws for its lie.
She could not. Could not. It was as if the OldMother controlled her hand and brought the claws back at the last instant so that she missed the GodBeing. She leapt at it instead, bearing it down again to roll it gasping in the dirt, then moving away a step so that it could stay on its back, submissive and beaten.
It either did not know to submit, or it would not. The GodBeing staggered up once more, defiant. SilverSide rushed at it again. The GodBeing screeched with pain as her arms wrapped around its chest and squeezed.
“Submit!” she whispered to it, and it was as if the OldMother’s will made the words a plea. She wanted this to end. She wanted the GodBeing to go limp and end this farce.
She was so much stronger than this thing of flesh. The GodBeing was weak, weaker than the sickest of the kin. And yet it still struggled.
“No!” it shouted back, its face gone red, its eyes wide and mouth gaping open. She could smell its breath, strangely sweet. “No. You must stop this. I order it. I am a human. You must obey me.”
The words staggered SilverSide as if they were physical blows. Her grasp loosened, and the GodBeing sagged to the ground. SilverSide stared at it without seeing it, all her attention on the confusion within her.
Human.
You must obey.
SilverSide howled in BeastTalk.
Somehow, he wasn’t dead. The rogue was howling again like a mad thing, and, as Derec stared at it, its body was changing. The snout was shortening, the ears moving lower on the body, and the canine jaws softening. Yes, the face was humanoid, and the features were startlingly like Derec’s own.
“GodBeing, I…I must know…more,” it said, and he could hear the confusion in its mind in its halting voice. Positronic drift. Derec began to feel some hope. “I…need information.”
There was someone or something behind the rogue, some shape. Mandelbrot had managed to lock his legs and rise, lumbering stiff-legged to them and impelled by the First Law. Derec saw the blow coming a moment before it landed. “Mandelbrot, no-” he began to shout, but it was too late.
Mandelbrot’s closed fist fell on the rogue’s neck. It went to its knees, a wolfish snarl coming from its human mouth, and now it was changing again, returning to wolf form. “No, Mandelbrot!” Derec ordered again. “I’m in no danger!”
The rogue was confused. It looked from Mandelbrot to Derec, to the forest, to the Hunter-Seekers moving rapidly toward them. It screeched, a sound of raw animal fury, its features changing rapidly and ceaselessly. Human/wolf/ human/wolf.
Wolf.
It stared at Derec. “Don’t go,” he began, but the rogue shook its head.
Dropping to all fours, it began to run for the cover of the forest.
“Come back!” Derec shouted. “I can teach you! In the city…”
But it was already gone.
Chapter 27. Changeling
Below, the kin huddled on the ledge before PackHome. The pups yelped and played mock fights and nursed. The younglings old enough to be in the Hunting Pack strutted and told fanciful tales about how they had helped SilverSide kill WalkingStones. The adults simply nodded and occasionally looked to the summit of the hill where SilverSide and LifeCrier had gone.
It had been a strange fight, that of SilverSide and the GodBeing. They still did not know who had won.
“You are unhappy with me,” SilverSide said in HuntTongue.
LifeCrier shook his grizzled muzzle from side to side. He used KinSpeech, telling SilverSide that she needn‘t be so concerned. “No, SilverSide. Not unhappy with you. I’m sad that you’re leaving.”
“I have not decided that. I have decided nothing.”
“I can smell the change in you.”
“LifeCrier has the nose of a DirtDigger,” SilverSide said in HuntTongue, and LifeCrier bowed his head at the rebuke. He did not move away, though, standing his ground on the rise. They could see the Hill of Stars in the twilight, an aching brightness, and they both stared at it for long minutes.
“I saw the OldMother move in you,” LifeCrier said. “My eyes are not as sharp as KeenEye’s, but you and the GodBeing…”
“I know. I felt it.”
“What will you do?”
SilverSide howled, and after a second, LifeCrier joined her. Their twined voices caused flocks of birds to rise in the trees below. “I am kin,” SilverSide said at last. “I lead the litter-kin here.”
“I know. No one would challenge you. You are the OldMother’s Gift.”
“I am kin,” SilverSide repeated. “Yet…” She stopped and looked at LifeCrier.
“I must do what is best for kin,” she said.
LifeCrier nodded. “That is all the OldMother would ever ask,” he told her.
“Derec!” Mandelbrot whispered urgently and pointed.
Campfire and city lights glinted on the robot’s polished body; the red gleam of its eyes glanced at Derec and then back into the night darkness beyond the city.