Steve waited until Hunter had been left alone. Then he stuck his sword back into his belt and ran to Hunter. “Come on!”
MC 6 followed.
In another moment, the riders had moved out of sight. Shouts and the clash of weapons resounded through the trees nearby, but the movement of the battle had shifted the lines away from them. Suddenly Steve found himself with MC 6 and Hunter damaged on the ground in front of him.
“Hunter, can you hear me? Can I pullout the spear? Or will that make it worse?”
“Pull it out straight, please,” Hunter said calmly.
“Ishihara! Get back here,” Wayne called. He stood a distance away through some trees, near the mule. Jane and Wayne remained on a tree branch above them.
Steve took the spear shaft in his hands but looked back over his shoulder. “Jane! Come on!”
“I’m coming!” She jumped off the branch suddenly, dodging Wayne’s arm as he grabbed for her. However, as she tried to run toward Steve and Hunter, Ishihara blocked her way. She could not possibly beat his robotic reflexes and speed. In a moment, Ishihara had taken her arm, and he began to pull her back toward the mule.
Steve almost let go of the spear shaft to run to her, but realized that he could not help right now. If he approached Ishihara with MC 6, then Ishihara would try to grab the component robot and might succeed; he still followed Wayne’s orders under the Second Law. Steve also feared that if he left MC 6 with Hunter and ran to help Jane, Ishihara would dodge around Steve and would either catch MC 6 or at least chase him away. Then Steve would have to start over again-maybe without Hunter’s help.
Steve decided he would have to get Jane away from Wayne later. He drew the spear out slowly, as straight as he could. Then he knelt and unlaced Hunter’s leather armor. He loosened it enough to fumble in Hunter’s clothes for the torso panel that hid the belt unit.
Another glance over his shoulder told him that Wayne and Ishihara had taken Jane out of sight. Their mule’s hoofbeats had been camouflaged by the sounds of battle. Those sounds had grown more distant as Artorius’s riders drove the Saxons back.
“Here’s the deal, Hunter,” said Steve. “I’ll get the belt unit out and take us all back to our own time. We can secure MC 6, get you repaired, and then come back just a minute after we left to rescue Jane.”
“No.” Hunter took Steve’s wrist in his other hand and stopped him. “Listen carefully. I have identified a new problem. I have been running my self-diagnostic programs and I cannot be returned to our time in this condition.”
“Why not? You’re a robot-it’s not like moving an injured human. Even if we do a little more damage moving you, we can still get you repaired.”
“That is not what I mean,” said Hunter. “The trauma damage has triggered a more critical problem, according to the monitors that study my functions on a microscopic level. My system will explode with nuclear force if I return to our own time this way.”
“What? That doesn’t make any sense.” Realizing that they could not leave before talking this out, Steve drew his hand away and glanced around.
No one remained in sight. MC 6 stood motionless over Hunter and Steve. For the moment, they could talk safely.
“I don’t get it, Hunter,” said Steve. “You said the instability in the atoms of the component robots resulted from the particle shower in the time travel sphere, which combined the miniaturization process and travel through time. You haven’t been miniaturized at all. So what’s going on?”
“I have limited information with which to work,” said Hunter. “However, I surmise that some of my atoms have been made similarly unstable by the repeated trips I have taken. Trauma from the spear has destroyed the shielding on a specific location in my shoulder. The unstable atoms in that area are the ones that will explode in the particle shower if I return.”
“You mean this is the opposite problem of the component robots,” said Steve. “They can go home safely in the particle shower, but they’ll explode if they go through time normally to reach the moment they left. You’re saying you can’t use the belt unit, but you could wait around for hundreds of years safely?”
“That is correct.”
“Well…can’t we shield it again? Maybe MC 6 can handle the precision required.”
“That should be possible,” said Hunter. “I can direct him continuously by radio as he works.”
“So that’s what you want to do?” Steve asked quietly. He did not want to lose Hunter, but he understood that arguing with him about the Laws of Robotics was a waste of time.
“Not yet. I want to hear Jane’s expertise as a roboticist. As I said, I am working with limited information. I may be wrong. If so, then my parts might’ explode with nuclear force when they reach the time I left on our current mission, as the component robots have.”
“Maybe MC 6 can understand the damage.”
“Telling him is important in any case; even Jane would only understand the principles, not retain all the precise numbers. If I sustain further damage or energy loss, this information should be available elsewhere.”
Steve turned to MC 6. “Listen to everything he says and remember it.”
“Acknowledged,” said MC 6.
“I am transferring the data by radio link rather than speech,” said Hunter. “It will be much faster. In fact, we are finished.”
“Look, Hunter, can you get up and move? The only visible damage is in your shoulder. Do your legs work?”
“Technically, yes. Most of my body remains mechanically sound. However, a number of electrical circuits have been broken, some of which normally access my energy storage. I am able to reroute only minimal energy. While I might be able to walk upright for a short distance, the danger of falling and causing greater trauma is high.”
“You shouldn’t move.”
“Not if I can avoid it.”
“I see. MC 6, I want to talk about you,” said Steve. “Shut down your hearing and vision. I’ll have Hunter radio you to turn them on again; when he conveys my message, it will also have Second Law force.”
“Acknowledged,” said MC 6.
“Can we really trust MC 6 to make your repairs?” Steve asked. “What if he makes some interpretation of the First Law on his own without telling us and sabotages you? Then we’ll all be stuck here.”
“That is the clinching argument we need that he must cooperate,” said Hunter. “The First Law will neither allow him to change history nor to harm you, Wayne, and Jane by stranding you. He must repair my condition so that we can all go back.”
“All right. We have to make sure you and MC 6 are safe, then. And I still have to get Jane away from Wayne somehow.”
“We must also return for Harriet,” said Hunter. “First, however, I must warn you that I hear Wayne’s footsteps approaching to your left, in the trees about nine meters away. From my position here on the ground, I cannot see him.”
21
Steve turned to look. Wayne stopped warily in the trees, watching him. He had picked up a Saxon sword and shield, probably from a fresh corpse.
“Hunter, shut down your hearing and vision.” Steve forced his voice to remain calm. “Turn them back on when I tap you on the arm three times quickly.”
“I cannot. Danger is present. Under the First Law, I must be able to help.”
“You can’t help, anyway,” said Steve. “Not now. And I have a chance to complete our mission.”
“How?”
“Never mind how. I can do this more efficiently if I don’t have to worry about you interfering. Do it.”
“Is a First Law imperative involved?”
“If I complete our mission, then the First Law danger to the whole line of history to come will be finished. Now shut up and do it.”
Hunter said nothing more.
Steve realized, belatedly, that ordering Hunter to shut up meant that the big robot would not acknowledge whether or not he had agreed to shut down his hearing and vision.
“If you still hear me, say so,” said Steve.
Hunter still said nothing.
Steve looked through the trees at Wayne again. Obviously, Wayne had come prepared to fight if necessary. Steve decided that Wayne must have ordered Ishihara to take Jane far enough away so that the robot would not realize Wayne intended to risk getting into a fight. Wayne had seen Hunter go down with a spear in his shoulder and Wayne could control MC 6 under the Second Law. That meant he had come to fight Steve.