“You taught him how, Sawyer.”
There was a long and ominous silence. On the flat land to the north of the hill, Grumbler adjusted the elevation of the magnapult slightly, keyed the firing switch to a gyroscope, and prepared to charge. Creation had calculated the maximum range when the weapon was at a standstill.
“He he he he he—” came the patterns from the thing in the cave.
It gunned its engines and clutched the drive-shafts. It rolled toward the hill, gathering speed, and its mouth was full of death. Motors strained and howled. Like a thundering bull, it rumbled toward the south. It hit maximum velocity at the foot of the slope. It lurched sharply upward. As the magnapult swept up to correct elevation, the gyroscope closed the circuit.
A surge of energy. The clenching fist of the field gripped the canister, tore it free of the loader, hurled it high over the broken terrain toward the enemy. Grumbler skidded to a halt on the hilltop.
“Listen, Sawyer, I’m sorry, bill there’s nothing—”
The enemy’s voice ended with a dull snap. A flare of light came briefly from the southern horizon, and died.
“He he he he he—” said the thing in the cave.
Grumbler paused.
THKRRUMMMP! came the shock-wave through the rocks.
Five emissary ears relayed their recordings of the detonation from various locations. It studied them, it analyzed. The detonation had occurred less than fifty meters from the enemy runabout. Satiated, it wheeled around lazily on the hilltop and rolled northward toward the center of the world. All was well.
“Aubrey, you got cut ojf,” grunted the thing in the cave. “Call me, you coward… call me. I want to make certain you hear.”
Grumbler, as a random action, recorded the meaningless noise of the thing in the cave, studied the noise, rebroadcast it on the long-wave frequency: “Aubrey, you got cut off. Call me, you coward… call me. I want to make certain you hear.”
The seismitter caught the long-wave noise and reintroduced it as vibration in the rocks.
The thing screamed in the cave. Grumbler recorded the screaming noise, and rebroadcast it several times.
“Aubrey… Aubrey, where are you… AUBREY! Don’t desert me, don’t leave me here—”
The thing in the cave became silent.
It was a peaceful night. The stars glared unceasingly from the blackness, and the pale terrain was haunted by Earthlight from the dim crescent in the sky. Nothing moved. It was good that nothing moved. The holy place was at peace in the airless world. There was blessed stasis.
Only once did the thing stir again in the cave. So slowly that Grumbler scarcely heard the sound, it crawled to the entrance and lay peering up at the steel behemoth on the crag.
It whispered faintly in the rocks. “I made you, don’t you understand? I’m human. I made you—”
Then with one leg dragging behind, it pulled itself out into the Earthglow and turned as if to look up at the dim crescent in the sky. Gathering fury, Grumbler stirred on the crag, and lowered the black maw of a grenade launcher.
“I made you,” came the meaningless noise.
It hated noise and motion. It was in its nature to hate them. Angrily, the grenade launcher spoke. And then there was blessed stasis for the rest of the night.