“What do you think, Chad?” Hunter asked.
“Just a minute. I’m checking my belt computer.” He was silent for a moment.
Hunter, who had moved to a standing position in the Y of two stout branches, looked down again at the predator. The dinosaur was standing patiently at the base of the tree. Its tail had stopped moving.
“It might be a velociraptor,” Chad called. “That’s a certain predator with the right overall size and body type. I didn’t get a very long look, of course. A lot of bipedal dinosaurs that existed had much the same appearance. That’s why it resembles a stegoceras. The only trouble is, velociraptors have only been found in Mongolia. That doesn’t mean they didn’t exist here. It just means we don’t know.”
“How long do you think it is going to stay here?” Hunter shouted.
“I have no idea,” yelled Chad. “That kind of behavior is too subtle to learn from fossils.”
“I see,” Hunter muttered. “Better get comfortable. Do not even consider climbing down without telling me.”
“No problem,” Jane shouted.
Hunter coiled the rope and slipped it over one shoulder. The patient predator below him had not moved. It was hungry and thought it could outwait its prey.
By Hunter’s internal clock, after forty-two minutes and twelve seconds, the dinosaur finally moved out of sight. Hunter’s enhanced hearing told him, however, that the creature was still nearby, hoping that Hunter would come down out of the tree. Another one hour and seventeen minutes passed before the dinosaur actually gave up and wandered away a substantial distance.
At this point, Hunter decided he could risk returning to the ground under the Third Law, but he still wanted to find out if the dinosaur would return before he was willing to tell Chad and Jane to come down. Still listening for the predator’s footsteps, he dropped to the ground and quickly hiked back to the landing site. There he found the two of them about three and a half meters up in a tree, sitting uncomfortably.
“My hearing tells me the predator is gone,” said Hunter. “I will move you to the ground.”
They both began a careful descent. In a few minutes, Hunter had lifted Jane down safely and was just lifting Chad out of the tree when he heard an unusual noise. He set Chad down and turned to focus his attention. Two bipeds were running quickly in their direction through the underbrush; by their footsteps, Hunter knew that one was Steve.
“Hunter!” Steve yelled. “Hunter, look out!”
Instantly, Hunter lifted Chad back into the tree. As Steve raced toward them, Hunter raised Jane again also. Steve finally came into view, stumbling over a tree branch and staggering forward as he regained his balance.
“Over here!” Hunter ordered. “What is it?”
Steve was too out of breath to speak. Hunter did not have time to lift him before a dinosaur the size of a large dog charged out of the brush. Steve dodged behind the tree trunk.
In the same moment Hunter braced himself to fight off the dinosaur. It was much smaller than the velociraptor. In fact, by its size and the hard dome on its head, he quickly recognized that this was a stegoceras.
Hunter immediately revised his tactics. This was the herbivore that they wanted to use to trap MC Governor. He wanted to capture this stegoceras if he could.
The stegoceras darted around Hunter, but he shifted to block it. Then the stegoceras stopped to look him over. Hunter slowly slipped the coil of rope from his shoulder and tied a loop on one end.
“Hey, Chad!” Steve gasped, between breaths. “Give me your rope. Drop it down here.”
“All right. Here!”
As Hunter prepared to lasso the stegoceras, he heard the rope drop behind him. A moment later, Steve came up on the other side of the stegoceras with a newly-tied lasso. The small dinosaur hesitated, aware that it now had two enemies, neither of which was running away.
“Let me go first,” said Hunter. “I cannot let you take an unnecessary risk.”
“I can follow your lead,” said Steve.
Hunter nodded. “Get ready to throw. I am going to move up on this side and try to lasso it. If it dodges your way, maybe you can surprise it.”
“Ready,” said Steve.
Hunter advanced in two slow, precisely measured steps. Then, as the stegoceras glanced toward Steve, Hunter threw his loop. With the distance judged by his careful robotic eye and his throw governed by his exact body motion, the loop dropped over the dinosaur’s head and settled around its neck.
“Got him!” Chad yelled enthusiastically.
Hunter tightened the loop. As the stegoceras reared back, Steve ran forward and lassoed their prey again. Then they pulled their ropes taut, holding the stegoceras in place as it pulled and yanked.
While Hunter had all his attention focused on holding his prey lassoed, his hearing told him of sudden bipedal footsteps behind him, about nine meters away.
“Look!” Jane shouted frantically.
“It’s MC Governor!” Chad yelled. “It must be! What do we do?”
Hunter glanced back over his shoulder. He saw a short, slender human form standing perfectly still, watching him. Then the stranger turned and ran the other way, quickly disappearing into the dense forest cover.
“Stay where you are,” Hunter ordered. He could not release the rope without endangering Steve, so that First Law concern overrode all his other duties. The stegoceras had to be gotten under control before any of them did anything else.
Steve had already backed up to a tall, young tree. He quickly ran the end of his rope around the trunk several times, holding it firmly. Then he tied a simple knot to hold it. “There, Hunter. Do the same with your end. Give it enough slack not to strangle it.”
“Understood.” Hunter backed up to another tree and quickly tied his rope as well.
The stegoceras still jumped and pulled, but it was tied firmly now.
“How about getting us down?” Jane called.
9
Hunter quickly lifted both Jane and Chad to the ground again. Chad, in particular, studied the stegoceras with interest. He unhooked his belt computer and started entering observations about it in a quick, quiet voice.
Hunter turned up his visual and aural sensitivity in order to continue tracking the fugitive robot. Their fugitive was already gone in the dense forest. Near Hunter, Steve wiped sweat from his face on his sleeve and looked over their still-struggling catch.
“Do you know where the robot went?” Jane asked Hunter, after watching him for a moment.
“Only a short distance. I tracked him with my hearing at first, but now his footsteps are silent. That probably means he is hiding nearby, listening to our conversation.”
“Maybe,” said Jane. “Or he may have found a very quiet way to keep moving. His arm strength might allow him to swing carefully from one tree branch to another, for instance.”
“I would probably hear that,” said Hunter.
“MC Governor got here too soon for the trap,” said Chad, turning away from the stegoceras. “We weren’t quite ready for him yet.”
“Yes,” said Hunter. “He correctly judged that no threat of harm existed here that I did not have under control. So he was free to flee.”
“Well?” Steve demanded. “Hunter, aren’t we going to chase him or something? Let’s go after him.”
“I do not believe he has fled very far,” said Hunter. “But if I pursue him, he will run. You three cannot keep up.”
“Can we try it?” Steve pleaded. “This is what we came for.”
“I will not lead you barging through this forest recklessly- especiallythis late in the day. MC Governor will still have to respond to the Laws. Inducing him to come to us is a safer tactic for you humans than running around after him.”
Steve sighed. “All right. I’ll let the stegoceras go.”
“Not so fast!” Chad stepped up quickly. “First I want to record as much description of him as I can.”
“He’s all yours.”
Chad eyed the dinosaur and began muttering observations into his belt computer.
“Something else is wrong,” said Jane. “That wasn’t a Governor robot. It was one of the six component robots that combine to create a Governor.”