“Yes, if we have prolonged interaction with them,” said Ishihara. “But I cannot predict how quickly I will make progress.”
“I think I remember something from my elementary school days,” said Wayne. “Didn’t the Chinese used to bow to each other as a greeting?”
“I do not know.”
“Well, try it. Do what I do.” Wayne caught the eye of the man with the hoe and slowly bowed forward from the waist.
Next to him, Ishihara did the same.
The man carrying the hoe bowed in return. Belatedly, so did several of his companions. All of them fell silent again.
“It’s like offering a handshake in our own time,” said Wayne. “We finally did something they understood.”
An elderly man stepped forward from the group. The man with the hoe joined him, lowering the hoe to the ground. The older man spoke to Wayne, calmly this time.
“Any idea what he said?” Wayne asked.
“No.”
“I was afraid you’d say that. But he’s asking a question, don’t you think?”
“From his tone and facial expression, yes.”
“I’m going to guess he’s asked who we are or where we came from,” said Wayne. He smiled again and pointed to the sky. “Ihope that’s what he asked.”
The peasants began chattering excitedly among themselves again. The two men in the front bowed once more. Everyone in the group looked at Wayne and Ishihara in amazement.
“I have to keep this going somehow,” said Wayne. “Just follow me.” He walked forward, still smiling, and patted his stomach. “Can you help us, friends?” The only tools of communication he could think of were gestures, facial expressions, and tones of voice.
For the first time, some of the peasants smiled in surprise. Certainly, they recognized his gesture of hunger. The two men in the front conferred briefly. Then the older man spoke, waving for Wayne and Ishihara to come with them.
Wayne glanced at Ishihara, relieved. “Well, I got through to them a little. Let’s go.”
“I would expect the villagers to believe that good spirits who come to visit humans would speak the local human language,” said Ishihara. “The villagers may question this.”
“Well…if they do, we can’t understand them. And if we did, we still couldn’t explain.” With a helpless shrug, Wayne smiled again at their plight. “Since they don’t seem to want to hurt us, maybe we can get along.”
“I recommend that you keep your hand on your belt unit,” said Ishihara, as he joined Wayne in walking forward.
The peasants kept a slight distance from them as they took the road, walking away from the city. They still muttered among themselves and glanced at their new guests with a mixture of awe and fascination. Wayne smiled and nodded at anyone he caught looking at him.
“So how do you feel about this so far?” Wayne asked Ishihara. “Joining them, I mean. They still seem to like us.”
“I am most concerned about your safety under the First Law. The danger has only decreased slightly. Our inability to communicate effectively means that a misunderstanding could occur very easily.”
“I understand what you mean,” said Wayne. “I have every intention of being careful. But I reiterate my ongoing instructions to you: you must help me under the First Law to complete my mission of apprehending at least one component robot. My career and my life in general will be harmed if I can’t conduct my own investigation into how MC Governor malfunctioned.”
“ Acknowledged.”
Wayne grinned. “I bet they think we’re speaking some sort of fairy language.”
“I assume so.”
Before long, the peasants left the main road for a narrow dirt path. Ahead, Wayne saw a cluster of tightly bunched, single-story buildings barely outlined by hanging lanterns over the doors. Small children were playing nearby.
The grounds around the village were raked clean, but the surrounding crops had been planted almost right up against the small wooden houses clustered in the center. Only the width of a footpath separated the village from the crops, and the buildings from each other.
The man carrying the hoe called out. The children looked up, and elderly women came out of the houses. All of them stared in wonder at the strangers.
Hunter spent an uneventful night in the front room of the bungalow, motionless but not shut down. At the earliest light of dawn, he heard sounds of activity in the city around the bungalow-people talking, carts and wagons creaking, horses and donkeys clopping, and babies crying. A few moments later, Steve came out of his room.
“I guess nobody sleeps late around here,” Steve muttered. “What a racket.”
“Marcia and Jane have not stirred yet,” said Hunter. “I expect they will soon.”
“Yeah. Well, I’ll go look for the latrine.” Stretching, Steve left the bungalow.
A moment later, Hunter heard Jane and Marcia talking to each other. He waited patiently while all three humans rose, dressed, used the latrine, and washed at the water pump out in the courtyard. Then he joined them. The early morning sunlight angled across the courtyard. The sky was clear and bright, though the air was still cool at this hour.
“Good morning,” said Hunter. “You are all ready for breakfast?”
“I’m starved,” said Steve, tugging his robe here and there. “I just hope I can get used to wearing this thing.”
“I need a shower,” said Marcia. “But I don’t think they’ve been invented yet. We can arrange baths later in the day, though.”
“I’m ready to get breakfast,” said Jane. “And if this is the neighborhood where foreign visitors are common, then we can start looking for MC 5 at the same time.”
“Let’s go back to the same place where I asked for directions,” said Steve. “I kind of promised we’d come back there to eat.”
“All right.” Hunter turned and led his team out of the courtyard through a gate to one side of the main building. “This is a logical beginning.”
5
Out on the street, Hunter found shops already open. The aroma of various foods cooking reached him. People filled the street, walking among pony carts and pushcarts.
Steve fell into step next to Hunter. “This is a regular city, isn’t it? On an ordinary day. Where would MC 5 go around here to find clothes?”
“As always, I have only approximated the time when he will return to his full size,” said Hunter. “I believe yesterday was the earliest; he may not appear for another day or two. I suppose, like the other component robots, he will have to steal clothing when he first arrives, either from someone’s trash or maybe from a line of laundry hung up to dry in the sunlight.”
A line of people waited at the stall where Steve had asked for information the night before. Long wooden tables and benches had been placed out in front. Hunter could see a big pot of rice gruel simmering over an open fire burning in a brick hearth. Customers bought bowls of the gruel and small plates of pork and chicken strips and fresh vegetables to stir into it.
Hunter and Steve took places in line and bought three breakfasts. Atthe same time, Marcia and Jane sat down at one of the tables and reserved seats for them. While the humans ate, Hunter patiently observed their surroundings.
Most of the people Hunter could see were Chinese, either tending small shops, pushing vending carts, or walking briskly. They wore light, pajamalike loose jackets and trousers. A smaller number, dressed in embroidered silk gowns, were clearly more wealthy. A very few people he could see, however, were not Chinese at all, though they were wearing Chinese gowns.
“Marcia, of what origin are the two men walking toward us on the far side of the street?” Hunter asked. “In our own time, I would guess they were from the Middle East.”
She looked up from her bowl. “That’s a good guess. In this era, I’d say they are Central Asian Turks. Starting a couple of centuries ago, several waves of migrating Turks moved westward from Central Asia into the Middle East, which is one reason that many people of this appearance live there in our own time. The Mongol conquest of the entire region has facilitated travel in all directions and, as I said, Kublai Khan has hired many foreigners to work in his government. In fact, these Turks probably arrived by the Old Silk Road, just as the Polo family~”